Marriage, Property and Female Power in Germanic Culture and Germanic Heroic Poetry
Summary
This study examines the role of women in Germanic heroic (elegiac) poetry in relation to marriage, property and female power. It uses the stories of nine women from Beowulf, The Wife’s Lament, the Poetic Edda and the Nibelungenlied as examples and argues that they develop along similar lines. This study also looks to the role of women in Proto-Indo-European, Anglo-Saxon, Norse-Icelandic and German society to better understand the representation of women in Germanic heroic (elegiac) poetry.