Masculinities in Chaucer

Masculinities in Chaucer
Author: Peter G. Beidler
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 270
Release: 1998
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0859914348

Representations of masculinity in Chaucer's works examined through modern critical theory. How does Chaucer portray the various male pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales? How manly is Troilus? To what extent can the spirit and terminology of recent feminist criticism inform the study of Chaucer's men? Is there such athing as a distinct `Chaucerian masculinity', or does it appear in a multitude of different forms? These are some of the questions that the contributors to this ground-breaking and provocative volume attempt to answer, using a diversity of critical methods and theories. Some look at the behaviour of noble or knightly men; some at clerics, or businessmen, or churls; others examine the so-called "masculine" qualities of female characters, and the "feminine"qualities of male characters. Topics include the Host's bourgeois masculinity; the erotic triangles operating in the Miller's Tale; why Chaucer `diminished' the sexuality of Sir Thopas; and whether Troilus is effeminate, impotent or an example of true manhood. PETER G. BEIDLER is the Lucy G.Moses Distinguished Professor of English at Lehigh University. Contributors: MARK ALLEN, PATRICIA CLARE INGHAM, MARTIN BLUM, DANIEL F. PIGG, ELIZABETH M. BIEBEL, JEAN E. JOST, CAROL EVEREST, ANDREA ROSSI-REDER, GLENN BURGER, PETER G. BEIDLER, JEFFREY JEROME COHEN, DANIEL RUBEY, MICHAEL D. SHARP, PAUL R. THOMAS, STEPHANIE DIETRICH, MAUD BURNETT MCINERNEY, DEREK BREWER

Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood

Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood
Author: H. Crocker
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2007-06-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230604927

This book argues that Chaucer challenges his culture's mounting obsession with vision, constructing a model of 'manhed' that blurs the distinction between agency and passivity in a traditional gender binary.

Chaucer's Approach to Gender in the Canterbury Tales

Chaucer's Approach to Gender in the Canterbury Tales
Author: Anne Laskaya
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1995
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780859914819

This volume presents a feminist approach to the Canterbury Tales, investigating the ways in which the tensions and contradictions found within the broad contours of medieval gender discourse write themselves into Chaucer's text. Four discourses of medieval masculinity are examined, which simultaneously reinforce and resist one another: heroic or chivalric, Christian, courtly love, and emerging humanist models. Each chapter attempts to negotiate both contemporary assumptions of gender construction, and essentialist readings of gender common to the middle ages; throughout, the author argues that the Canterbury Tales offer a sophisticated discussion of masculinity, and that it strongly indicts some of the prevalent medieval notions of ideal masculinity while still remaining firmly homosocial and homophobic. The book concludes that on the question of gender issues, the Tales are best studied as male-authored texts containing representations and negotiations revealing much about late medieval masculinities. Dr ANNE LASKAYA teaches in the English Department at the University of Oregon.

Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
Author: Tison Pugh
Publisher: D. S. Brewer
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2008
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

New studies of the problem of medieval masculinity, and Chaucer's treatment of it. Issues relating to the male characters and the construction of masculinities in Chaucer's masterpiece of love found and love lost are explored here. Collectively the essays address the question of what it means to be a man in theMiddle Ages, what constitutes masculinity in this era, and how such masculinities are culturally constructed; they seek to advance scholarly understanding of the themes, characters, and actions of Troilus and Criseyde through thehermeneutics of medieval and modern concepts of manliness. Throughout, they argue that Troilus and the other characters, including Criseyde, are subject to multiple and conflicting interpretations, especially in regard to the intersections of their genders with their sexual performances and their conflicted relationships to generic expectations for gendered conduct. Contributors: JOHN M. BOWERS, MICHAEL CALABRESE, HOLLY A. CROCKER, KATE KOPPELMAN, MOLLY MARTIN, MARCIA SMITH MARZEC, GRETCHEN MIESZKOWSKI, JAMES J. PAXSON, TISON PUGH, R. ALLEN SHOAF, ROBERT S. STURGES, ANGELA JANE WEISL, RICHARD ZEIKOWITZ

Chaucer's Queer Nation

Chaucer's Queer Nation
Author: Glenn Burger
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 300
Release:
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9781452905327

Queer theory and postcolonial analysis are brought to bear on Chaucer. Bruger argues that, under the pressure of producing a poetic vision for a new vernacular English audience in the 'Canterbury Tales', Chaucer reimagined late medieval relations between the body and the community.

Medieval Go-betweens and Chaucer's Pandarus

Medieval Go-betweens and Chaucer's Pandarus
Author: G. Mieszkowski
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2016-04-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137085193

This book explores the rich, complex, literary tradition of the medieval go-between. Idealized going between usually leads to marriage and it develops a new dimension of the much debated question of courtly love and woman's part in it. Chaucer's Pandarus's place in this go-between tradition is a tour de force.

Constructing Chaucer

Constructing Chaucer
Author: G. Gust
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2009-05-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230621619

This book examines the scholarly construction of Geoffrey Chaucer in different historical eras, and challenges long-standing assumptions to enhance the theoretical dialogue on Chaucer's historical reception.

Annotated Chaucer bibliography

Annotated Chaucer bibliography
Author: Mark Allen
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 886
Release: 2015-11-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1784996459

An extremely thorough, expertly compiled and crisply annotated comprehensive bibliography of Chaucer scholarship between 1997 and 2010

The Cambridge Introduction to Chaucer

The Cambridge Introduction to Chaucer
Author: Alastair Minnis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2014-10-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316123723

Geoffrey Chaucer is the best-known and most widely read of all medieval British writers, famous for his scurrilous humour and biting satire against the vices and absurdities of his age. Yet he was also a poet of passionate love, sensitive to issues of gender and sexual difference, fascinated by the ideological differences between the pagan past and the Christian present, and a man of science, knowledgeable in astronomy, astrology and alchemy. This concise book is an ideal starting point for study of all his major poems, particularly The Canterbury Tales, to which two chapters are devoted. It offers close readings of individual texts, presenting various possibilities for interpretation, and includes discussion of Chaucer's life, career, historical context and literary influences. An account of the various ways in which he has been understood over the centuries leads into an up-to-date, annotated guide to further reading.