ABSTRACT
Social status and geography could act as boundaries to both men and women. Outside the elite, both were denied access to participate in court publications through the socially constructed boundaries of class. The physical boundaries of geography meant that many regional women and men were unable to participate in the celebrated literary circles in Paris and Lyons. Dialects served as linguistic boundaries to keep some people from contributing to publications, while favouring those who understood langue d’oïl. This chapter examines how women writers interacted with, re-defined and transformed socially constructed, physical and linguistic boundaries, exploiting their dynamism to allow female access to publication.
