Mothers and Daughters in Medieval German Literature (1997)
This pioneering study offers feminist readings of major works of medieval German literature. In it I analyzed the conventions and roles structuring literary conversations between mothers and daughters, and how these upheld, modified, or undermined patriarchy. Texts treated include: Henrich von Veldeke, Eneasroman; the Nibelungenlied; the anonymous epic, Kudrun; Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan und Isolde; the didactic poem, Die Winsbeckin; the mother-daughter poems by Neidhart and his imitators; and the popular, fifteenth-century rhymed couplet text known as Stiefmutter und Tochter.
Review
“As I have tried to suggest by quoting chapter titles and reproducing some of the arguments, this book is elegantly done. Each chapter opens with an epigraph from a poem by a twentieth-century German woman writer. Rasmussen's study is intended for an audience of specialists and non-specialists, as the lengthy quotations, English translations, and plot summaries suggest. It offers ample evidence that medieval mother-daughter stories are about the construction of patriarchy and the transfer of information between women across generations.”
Margaret Schleissner
(Rider University), in Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality 30, No. 1 (2000) : 50-52.