"Our own critical language, Edwards proposes, may supply language for certain experiences in the past that, for those living that past, defied description. Her use of survivor here, in the context of everything that medievals understood by raptus, is one such crucial term. This deeply thoughtful, scholarly, and beautifully written book pays the closest attention to bodies textual and human, medieval and modern." - David Wallace, Judith Rodin Professor, University of Pennsylvania, USA "In this intelligent and sensitive book, Suzanne M. Edwards moves discussions of representations of rape forward by focusing on the hermeneutically complex role survival of sexual violence plays in medieval literary works as varied as the early Middle English treatise on virginity Hali Meidenhad and Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale. Providing perspicacious readings of representations of gendered violence in the Middle Ages, Edwards also brings to the fore the implications of these readings for our understanding of sexual violence in the present." - Elizabeth Robertson, Professor of English, University of Glasgow, UK

From devotional literature to political narratives, medieval texts propose that sexual violence victims have privileged moral, ethical, and spiritual insight. This book explores these discourses of survival in a wide range of medieval English texts, including letters of spiritual advice, legal cases, romances, and legendary histories.