Gender and Marriage in Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." The "Marriage Group"
Gender and Marriage in Geoffrey Chaucer's

Author: Deborah Heinen

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2014-07-03

Total Pages: 22

ISBN-13: 365668832X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Bonn, language: English, abstract: “That he is a poet concerned with gender issues is obvious: almost every narrative in the Canterbury Tales deals with how the sexes relate to one another or envision one another” (Laskaya 1995: 11). Of course Laskaya talks about Geoffrey Chaucer and his famous work “The Canterbury Tales” from the 14th century, which is an unfinished collection of tales told by a group of pilgrims. Even though Laskaya accounts “The Canterbury Tales” as rich in gender issues, this work concentrates on four specific prologues and tales, the so called “Marriage Group”. The work in hand is supposed to discuss gender-specific aspects and gender-relations in the context of medieval society using the example of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”.

Gender and Romance in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Gender and Romance in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Author: Susan Crane

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1400863759

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this fresh look at Chaucer's relation to English and French romances of the late Middle Ages, Crane shows that Chaucer's depictions of masculinity and femininity constitute an extensive and sympathetic response to the genre. For Chaucer, she proposes, gender is the defining concern of romance. As the foundational narratives of courtship, romances participate in the late medieval elaboration of new meanings around heterosexual identity. Crane draws on feminist and genre theory to argue that Chaucer's profound interest in the cultural construction of masculinity and femininity arises in large part from his experience of romance. In depicting the maturation of young women and men, romances stage an ideology of identity that is based in gender difference. Less obviously gendered concerns of romance--social hierarchy, magic, and adventure--are also involved in expressing femininity and masculinity. The genders prove to be not simply binary opposites but overlapping and shifting coreferents. Precarious social standing can carry a feminine taint; women's adventures recall but also contradict those of men. This lively study reveals that Chaucer's redeployments of romance are particularly sensitive to the crucial place gender holds in the genre. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780859914819

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

The Selected Canterbury Tales: A New Verse Translation
The Selected Canterbury Tales: A New Verse Translation

Author: Geoffrey Chaucer

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2012-03-27

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 039334178X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Fisher's work is a vivid, lively, and readable translation of the most famous work of England's premier medieval poet. Preserving Chaucer's rhyme and meter and faithfully articulating his poetic voice, Fisher makes Chaucer's tales accessible to a contemporary ear.

Chaucer's Sexual Poetics
Chaucer's Sexual Poetics

Author: Carolyn Dinshaw

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780299122744

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Through an analysis of the poems Chaucers wordes Unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn, Troilus and Criseyde, the Legend of Good Women, the Man of Law's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Tale and its Prologue, the Clerk's Tale, and the Pardoner's Tale, Carolyn Dinshaw offers a provocative argument on medieval sexual constructs and Chaucer's role in shaping them. Operating under the assumption that people read and write certain ways based upon society's demands, Dinshaw examines gender identity and the effects of a patriarchal society. The focal point of Dinshaw's argument is the idea that the literary text can be seen as the female body while any literary activities upon the text are decidedly male. Through a series of six provocative essays, Dinshaw argues that Chaucer was not only aware that gender is a social construction, but that he self-consciously worked to oppose the dominance of masculinity that a patriarchal society places on texts by creating works in which gender identity and hierarchy were more fluid.

Chaucer's Queer Nation
Chaucer's Queer Nation

Author: Glenn Burger

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published:

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9781452905327

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Author: Geoffrey Chaucer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-05-19

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 1316615456

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Six-hundred-year-old tales with modern relevance. This stunning full-colour edition from the bestselling Cambridge School Chaucer series explores the complete text of The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale through a wide range of classroom-tested activities and illustrated information, including a map of the Canterbury pilgrimage, a running synopsis of the action, an explanation of unfamiliar words and suggestions for study. Cambridge School Chaucer makes medieval life and language more accessible, helping students appreciate Chaucer's brilliant characters, his wit, sense of irony and love of controversy.

The Wife of Willesden
The Wife of Willesden

Author: Zadie Smith

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2023-02-14

Total Pages: 648

ISBN-13: 073524698X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Zadie Smith's first time writing for the stage, a riotous twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Wife of Bath “Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. She plays many roles round here. And never Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life Story to whoever has ears and eyes . . .” In her stage-writing debut, celebrated novelist and essayist Zadie Smith brings to life a comedic and cutting twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic The Wife of Bath. The Wife of Willesden follows Alvita, a Jamaican-born British woman in her mid-50s, as she tells her life story to a band of strangers in a small pub on the Kilburn High Road. Wearing fake gold chains, dressed in knock-off designer clothes, and speaking in a mixture of London slang and patois, Alvita recalls her five marriages in outrageous, bawdy detail, rewrites her mistakes as triumphs, and shares her beliefs on femininity, sexuality, and misogyny with anyone willing to listen. A thoughtful reimagining of an unforgettable narrative of female sexual power, written with singular verve and wit, The Wife of Willesden shows why Zadie Smith is one of the sharpest and most versatile writers working today.