The Defiant Muse: Dutch and Flemish Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present

This is a bilingual anthology of over 100 poems by 45 Dutch and Flemish women poets from the Middle Ages to the present. It includes poems by both well-known and rediscovered poets, many available in English for the first time. The poems are presented in their original language, with English translation on opposite pages. Among the poets represented are; Hadewijch. a Dutch poet of the 13th century, whose poems about love are rooted in deep mystical experience; and Anna Bijns, the 16th-century poet, who was the first woman in Dutch literary history to write about sexual desire. The introduction places the poems in their historical, cultural and literary perspective.