Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies of Discourse PDF
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CHAUCER'S PARDONER AND GENDER THEORY THE NEW MIDDLE AGES BONNIE WHEELER Series Editor The New Middle Ages presents transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures. It includes both scholarly monographs and essay collec tions. PUBLISHED BY ST. MARTIN'S PRESS: H-i>men in the Medieval Islamic H-i>rld: Power, Patronage, and Piety edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: On Boccaccio's Poetaphysics by Gregory B. Stone Presence and Presentation: H-i>men in the Chinese Literati Tradition by Sherry]. Mou The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France by Constant]. Mews Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault by Philipp W Rosemann For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh by Frances Underhill Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England by Mary Dockray-Miller Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a Twelfth-Century H-i>man edited by Bonnie Wheeler The Postcolonial Middle Ages edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies of Discourse by Robert S. Sturges CHAUCER'S PARDONER AND GENDER THEORY BODIES OF DISCOURSE Robert S. Sturges Palgrave Macmillan CHAUCER'S PARDONER AND GENDER THEORY Copyright © 2000 Robert S. Sturges. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-312-21366-4 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. ISBN 978-1-349-61879-8 ISBN 978-1-349-61877-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-61877-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sturges, Robert Stuart, 1953- Chaucer's Pardoner and gender theory : bodies of discourse I Robert S. Sturges p. em. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Pardoner's tale. 2. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Canterbury tales. Prologue. 3. Homosexuality and literature--England-History-To 1500. 4. Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages in literature. 5. Gender identity in literature. 6. Storytelling in literature. 7. Body, Human, in literature. 8. Clergy in literature. 9. Sex in literature. I. Title. PR1868.P3S78 1999 821' .1-dc21 99-27777 CIP Book design by Letra Libre First edition: March 2000 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Jim Davidson leue gram CONTENTS Series Editor's Foreword ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Preface. The Pardoner in Discourse: Theories, Histories, Methods xv Introduction. The Pardoner, the Preacher, and (Gender) Politics 1 I. CONTEXTS: THE PARDONER'S GENDERS, SEXES, EROTIC PRACTICES 1. The Pardoner's Genders: Linguistic and Other 21 2. The Pardoner's (Over-)Sexed Body 35 3. The Pardoner's Different Erotic Practices 47 II. READINGS: BODIES, VOICES, TEXTS 4. The Pardoner Unveiled 63 5. A Speaking and Singing Subject 81 6. The Dismemberment of the Pardoner 107 Conclusions. The Pardoner In and Out of The Canterbury Tales 141 Notes 169 Works Cited 211 Index 225 SERIES EDITOR'S FOREWORD T he New Middle Ages contributes to lively transdisciplinary conversa tions in medieval cultural studies through its scholarly monographs and essay collections. The series provides focused research in a contempo rary idiom about specific practices, expressions, and ideologies in the Mid dle Ages. Robert Sturges' Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies of Discourse is the fourteenth book in the series. Here Sturges investigates the fixities and fluidities of fourteenth-century discourses about gender by fo cusing on its most notably unsettled representative, Chaucer's Pardoner. This book provides richly sedimented readings of the discoherent and dis continuous rhetorics of gender and power mapped in the figure of the Par doner. In this keenly insightful study, Sturges provokes us, among other things, to examine anew our usual suppositions about Chaucer's notions of patriarchy and politics. Bonnie Hlheeler Southern Methodist University
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