Ogling Ladies: Scopophilia in Medieval German Literature

The love of looking, or scopophilia, is a common motif among female figures in medieval art and literature where it is usually expressed as a motherly or sexually interested gaze-one sanctioned, the other forbidden.

Sandra Summers investigates these two major variants of female voyeurism in exemplary didactic and courtly literature by medieval German authors. Setting the motif against the period’s dominant patriarchal ethos and its almost exclusive pattern of male authorship, Summers argues that the maternal gaze was endorsed as a stabilising influence while the erotic gaze was condemned as a threat to medieval order.

Summers brings to her analysis a consideration of several fascinating questions. Did medieval artists and writers invent the idea of ogling, or did they record a behavioural practice common at the time? How did the act of ogling alter a female character’s narrative trajectory? How did this effect figure into the regulation and restriction of women during Europe’s Middle Ages?

Drawing upon contemporary gender studies, women’s studies, film studies, and psychology, Summers argues that the female gaze ultimately governs social formation. Her provocative, relevant use of modern critical theory helps win new insights for the field of medieval literature.