Giving voice to women: Teaching feminist approaches to the mystery plays

Other critical studies have taken the converse path, and have sought to emphasise the positive role that women characters play. Davidson finds that the dramatization of the Virgin Mary foregrounds experiences which are "uniquely feminine" (1984,109). He, therefore, recognizes a source of power in such a representation of womanhood.

Many recent feminist studies of the cycle drama have overcome the problem of reading women's roles through the positive/misogynistic dichotomy by examining the position of the cycles within the wider context of medieval society Coletti's later work contextualizes the portrayal of Virgin Mary within the cycles by reading her alongside the public powers afforded medieval women. She deduces that "In the N-Town Trial plays, Mary's paradoxical body is deployed in order to upset institutions that order society" (1993, 82).19 Similarly, Evans's reading of Mrs Noah as a challenge to received sex-gender systems is accomplished through attention to the socio-economic status of medieval workers and in examining Uxor as subject rather than object (Evans 1992, 151, 153).20 Likewise, Evans's reading of the gender encoding of bodies within the cycles transcends the limitations of binary oppositions by exploring Caroline Walker Bynum's ideas on the "permeable boundaries" of gender (1991, 118), and the double-gendered body of Christ as a Foucauldian site for the demonstration of control (123).21

The work of Kathleen Ashley analyses the function of the dramas by drawing upon social and literary intersections. In "Medieval Courtesy Literature and Dramatic Mirrors of Female Conduct," she argues that the cycle dramas communicated multiple and contradictory messages to their audience, and that one of their functions was to serve as a type of conduct book for female audience members. Ashley analyses the Towneley Salutation of Elizabeth and sees "the greeting, gossip, and leave-takings" between Mary and Elizabeth, as exemplifying model conduct (1987, 29). Likewise, J.A. Tasioulas assesses the significance of the Virgin to medieval womanhood. She argues that within the N-Town plays Mary is shown as "a model for all people ... her life is a complicated blend of theology and domesticity which would have brought together the different elements of the female community for the great communal festival of the drama" (1997, 240).

Feminist critical readings of the plays suggest that a multiplicity of reactions towards the portrayal of women within the plays are (and were) possible. The limitations of Wickham's approach, which is shared by the majority of undergraduate textbooks, becomes evident when a study of the cycle play women is foregrounded. The differing feminist critical perspectives that are emerging show that Wickham, and many general undergraduate course books, are too limited in their assumptions. Coletti's article (1990) provides a useful starting point from which to analyse ways of demystifying the mystery plays within the classroom.

Teaching a feminist Response