Chaucer S Pardoner And Gender Theory

Chaucer s Pardoner and Gender Theory, the first book-length treatment of the character, examines the Pardoner in Chaucer s Canterbury Tales from the perspective of both medieval and twentieth-century theories of sex, gender, and erotic practice. Sturges argues for a discontinuous, fragmentary reading of this character and his tale that is genuinely both premodern and postmodern. Drawing on theorists ranging from St. Augustine and Alain de Lille to Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Sturges approaches the Pardoner as a representative of the construction of historical - and sexual - identities in a variety of historically specific discourses, and argues that medieval understandings of gender remain sedimented in postmodern discourse.

Chaucer s Pardoner and Gender Theory, the first book-length treatment of the character, examines the Pardoner in Chaucer s Canterbury Tales from the perspective of both medieval and twentieth-century theories of sex, gender, and erotic practice. Sturges argues for a discontinuous, fragmentary reading of this character and his tale that is genuinely both premodern and postmodern. Drawing on theorists ranging from St. Augustine and Alain de Lille to Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Sturges approaches the Pardoner as a representative of the construction of historical - and sexual - identities in a variety of historically specific discourses, and argues that medieval understandings of gender remain sedimented in postmodern discourse.

This treatment of Chaucer's Pardoner from the Canterbury Tales is from the perspective of both medieval and 20th-century theories of sex, gender, and erotic practice. Sturges argues for a discontinuous, fragmentary reading of this character and his tale that is both premodern and postmodern. Drawing on theorists ranging from St. Augustine and Alain de Lille to Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Sturges approaches the Pardoner as a representative of the construction of historical and sexual identities in a variety of historically specific discourses, and argues that medieval understandings of gender remain sedimented in postmodern discourse.

In The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages the American critic Harold Bloom claims that Shakespeare drew on Chaucer's Pardoner when creating the villain Iago for his Othello. This book turns Bloom's observation of influences within the canon of Western literature into a more complex intermedial analysis of dramatic and literary traditions at the waning of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance. The discussion of verbal and non-verbal codes in Chaucer's presentation of the Pardoner and Shakespeare's depiction of Iago sheds light on the various strands of the Vice's development, and shows that Chaucer's pilgrim, who descends obliquely from the stage Vices, stands at the very beginning of the Vice tradition, while Iago is a late development of him, who adapts his role to new dramatic challenges.

Chaucer: The Basics is an accessible introduction to the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. It provides a clear critical analysis of the texts, while also providing some necessary background to key medieval ideas and the historical period in which he lived. Jacqueline Tasioulas gives a brief account of Chaucer’s life in its historical and cultural context and also introduces the reader to some of the key religious and philosophical ideas of the period. The essentials of the language and pronunciation are introduced through close reading in a section dedicated to demystifying this often alien-seeming aspect of studying Chaucer. Including a whole chapter devoted to poetry the book also discusses key works, such as: The Book of the Duchess The House of Fame The Parliament of Fowls Troilus and Criseyde The Legend of Good Women The Canterbury Tales With glosses and translations of texts, a glossary of key terms and a timeline, this book is essential reading for anyone studying Chaucer and medieval literature.

As literary scholars have long insisted, an interdisciplinary approach is vital if modern readers are to make sense of works of medieval literature. In particular, rather than reading the works of medieval authors as addressing us across the centuries about some timeless or ahistorical 'human condition', critics from a wide range of theoretical approaches have in recent years shown how the work of poets such as Chaucer constituted engagements with the power relations and social inequalities of their time. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, medieval historians have played little part in this 'historical turn' in the study of medieval literature. The aim of this volume is to allow historians who are experts in the fields of economic, social, political, religious, and intellectual history the chance to interpret one of the most famous works of Middle English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer's 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales, in its contemporary context. Rather than resorting to traditional historical attempts to see Chaucer's descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims as immediate reflections of historical reality or as portraits of real life people whom Chaucer knew, the contributors to this volume have sought to show what interpretive frameworks were available to Chaucer in order to make sense of reality and how he adapted his literary and ideological inheritance so as to engage with the controversies and conflicts of his own day. Beginning with a survey of recent debates about the social meaning of Chaucer's work, the volume then discusses each of the Canterbury pilgrims in turn. Historians on Chaucer should be of interest to all scholars and students of medieval culture whether they are specialists in literature or history.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was the subject of the first volume in the Approaches to Teaching series, published in 1980. But in the past thirty years, Chaucer scholarship has evolved dramatically, teaching styles have changed, and new technologies have created extraordinary opportunities for studying Chaucer. This second edition of Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales reflects the wide variety of contexts in which students encounter the poem and the diversity of perspectives and methods instructors bring to it. Perennial topics such as class, medieval marriage, genre, and tale order rub shoulders with considerations of violence, postcoloniality, masculinities, race, and food in the tales. The first section, “Materials,†reviews available editions, scholarship, and audiovisual and electronic resources for studying The Canterbury Tales. In the second section, “Approaches,†thirty-six essays discuss strategies for teaching Chaucer’s language, for introducing theory in the classroom, for focusing on individual tales, and for using digital resources in the classroom. The multiplicity of approaches reflects the richness of Chaucer’s work and the continuing excitement of each new generation’s encounter with it.