The maiden and the knight. Gender, body and melodrama in Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter

In this article, I shall discuss Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter from a gender perspective, arguing that an understanding of Undset’s vision of the body and of the communication between the sexes emerges more clearly when seen as a melodramatic reaction to the situation of women in the early twentieth century. More particularly, I shall propose that although Undset is no modernist, her trilogy nevertheless responds importantly to the ‘gender trouble’ debate of her day. Undset’s view of the body and of the language of women can be clarified when read in the context of Cavell’s theory of the unknown woman and her melodramatic mode of expression.
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