Chaucer, Ethics, and GenderOUP Oxford, 2006 M04 6 - 288 pages This book makes a vigorous reassessment of the moral dimension in Chaucer's writings. For the Middle Ages, the study of human behaviour generally signified the study of the morality of attitudes, choices, and actions. Moreover, moral analysis was not gender neutral: it presupposed that certain virtues and certain failings were largely gender-specific. Alcuin Blamires - mainly concentrating on The Canterbury Tales - discloses how Chaucer adapts the composite inherited traditions of moral literature to shape the significance and the gender implications of his narratives. Chaucer, Ethics, and Gender is therefore not a theorization of ethical reading but a discussion of Chaucer's engagement with the literature of practical ethical advice. Working with the commonplace primary sources of the period, Blamires demonstrates that Stoic ideals, somewhat uncomfortably absorbed within medieval Christian moral codes as Chaucer realized, penetrate the poet's constructions of how women and men behave in matters (for instance) of friendship and anger, sexuality and chastity, protest and sufferance, generosity and greed, credulity and foresight. The book will be absorbing for all serious readers or teachers of Chaucer because it is packed with commanding new insights. It offers illuminating explanations concerning topics that have often eluded critics in the past: the flood-forecast in The Miller's Tale, for example; or the status of emotion and equanimity in The Franklin's Tale; the 'unethical' sexual trading in the Shipman's Tale; the contemporary moral force of a widow's curse in The Friar's Tale; and the quizzical moral link between the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. There is even a new hypothesis about the conceptual design of The Canterbury Tales as a whole. Deeply informed and historically alert, this is a book that engages its reader in the vital role played by ethical assumptions (with their attendant gender assumptions) in Chaucer's major poetry. |
Contents
1 | |
from The General Prologue and The Knights Tale to The Parsons Prologue | 20 |
The Millers Tale The Merchants Tale The Wife of Baths Tale | 46 |
The Merchants Tale The Reeves Tale and other Tales | 78 |
The Man of Laws Introduction and Tale The Shipmans Tale | 107 |
The Wife of Baths Prologue and Tale and The Franklins Tale | 130 |
The Franklins Tale The Clerks Tale The Nuns Priests Tale | 152 |
The Friars Tale The Physicians Tale and the Pardoner | 181 |
The Second Nuns Prologue and Tale The Canons Yeomans Prologue and Tale The Manciples Prologue and Tale and The Parsons Prologue | 207 |
Conclusion | 230 |
239 | |
257 | |
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Common terms and phrases
actually appears associated authority becomes body calls Cambridge Canterbury Chapter Chaucer Christian claims concept concern considered constitutes context contrast counsel Criseyde critics curse discourse discussion doctrine Dorigen emotion emphasized English Essays ethical example expression fact fear fellowship female Franklin’s Tale Friar’s friendship further gender generosity giving Gower human husband ideal idle interest January John jurisdiction kind knight liberality lines London male marriage matter means medieval Merchant’s Middle Ages mind misogyny moral narrative natural noted offers Oxford particularly perhaps person position precisely present Prologue puts question reader reason reference response Roman Second seems seen Seneca sense sexual sins social speak speech spiritual Stoic story suggests summoner tale’s thing thought Tradition trans Troilus truth University Press urges Vices virtue Wife woman women writings