De l\u27autre cote du miroir: Pour une lecture feminine du Mirouer de Marguerite Porete et du Speculum de Marguerite d\u27Oingt

This study suggests both the pertinence of a postmodern, feminist reading of medieval texts written by women and the importance of these often forgotten texts within the framework of current theory and methodology. It explores the concept of writing as mirror and as reflection for/on/of the self in two late thirteenth-century mystical treatises and discusses their relevance for the ongoing debates on specularity, autobiography and ecriture feminine. The mirror is posited in Marguerite Porete\u27s Mirouer des simples ames and Marguerite d\u27Oingt\u27s Speculum as a refusal of existent (male) specular imagery and an affirmation of another (female) space. The metaphor embodies a new expression of the relationship between the female subject and the divine, as well as a new definition of the writing-self. By refuting the traditional subject/object paradigm, these mystical texts create striking possibilities for female speech through a mise en abi me of their own reflexive discourse. Their textual strategies illustrate the thesis brought forth by Luce Irigaray in her Speculum of the Other Woman, namely that the mirror is the only scene where in the history of the West, woman speaks and acts so publicly. In spite of medieval misogyny and clerical skepticism, these mystics attest to the uniqueness of their endeavor by choosing to speak from what Irigaray calls the other side of the mirror, a place denying any position of mastery but claiming a different, independent, uncompromising feminine voice for their specular self and their speculative writing. Both theological and poetic in their approach, their still widely unknown medieval treatises can be read and heard not only as a deconstructive , oppositional stance against the narrowing scholastic views of the time, but also as a reconstructive creative force, an endless and always new spiritual song celebrating the plurality of female language that comes into being through the recognition of and the desire for the divine (male and female) Other within