“I would recommend this book to anyone who is studying, researching, or very interested in medieval gender, falconry and literature … Petrosillo is clear in her discussion of the specific, in-depth medieval literature she focuses on to draw a connection from falconry to poetry and gender and to make the practical knowledge of falconry visible in a literary context.” —Ellen Hagen, H-Environment
“Petrosillo offers lively and fresh readings of familiar texts, demonstrating that the established analogy of hawks and women as seen in medieval romances has been too easily read as simple allegory, and in fact the power relations between falconer and bird offer more scope for female agency than hitherto acknowledged.” —Gillian Rudd, author of Greenery: Ecocritical Readings of Late Medieval English Literature
“Hawking Women makes the argument that medieval, fourteenth-century falconry manuals shed light into the means for a new understanding of how poetic language works, and even more striking, how it works as a representation of women, female empowerment, and the necessary skill and patience of an expert falconer. … Faculty and students will gain a fresh perspective about oft-taught literary texts to generate new and lively classroom discussions and further literary studies.” —Jeffery Moser, Rocky Mountain Review