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.

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”.

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 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 title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Gender criticism has recently been applied to a wide range of ancient and modern literature; such an approach can reveal many previously unrecognized attitudes among earlier writers. Chaucer has long been recognized as a writer with psychological sensitivities. This book attempts to show that Chaucer has demonstrated his sensitivities on gender issues by recognizing and revising many of the gender stereotypes familiar from his time. It is likely that he was influenced in these ideas by an early feminist writer from France, Christine de Pizan, who complained about the Romance of the Rose as an embodiment of gender stereotyping. Chaucer's later works particularly show an awareness of gender issues that has not been entirely recognized and which is at variance with ideas in the Romance, which he had translated into English during his youthful period.

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.