SOURCE: “Autobiography of a New ‘Createur’: Female Spirituality, Selfhood, and Authorship in The Book of Margery Kempe,” in Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Literary and Historical Perspectives, edited by Mary Beth Rose, Syracuse University Press, 1986, pp. 155-68.

In the following essay, Mueller maintains that The Book of Margery Kempe has been overlooked as an autobiography and has instead been examined primarily as an example of late medieval literature and spirituality. Focusing on the Book's narrative and thematic design, Mueller analyzes the work as an autobiography exploring the issues of female spirituality and selfhood.

Since its discovery in manuscript in 1934, The Book of Margery Kempe has variously engaged the interest of students of late medieval literature and spirituality. But this interest has tended, until recently, to obscure the narrative and thematic coherence of the Book's autobiographical design. It is remarkable enough that the work...