Artwork

Content provided by Cambridge University. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Cambridge University or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Player FM - Podcast App
Go offline with the Player FM app!

Dr Alex Da Costa: The Pardoner's Passing and How it Matters: Gender, Relics and Speech Acts

39:11
 
Share
 

Archived series ("Inactive feed" status)

When? This feed was archived on July 14, 2019 01:36 (4+ y ago). Last successful fetch was on May 22, 2019 05:37 (5y ago)

Why? Inactive feed status. Our servers were unable to retrieve a valid podcast feed for a sustained period.

What now? You might be able to find a more up-to-date version using the search function. This series will no longer be checked for updates. If you believe this to be in error, please check if the publisher's feed link below is valid and contact support to request the feed be restored or if you have any other concerns about this.

Manage episode 226156125 series 2480165
Content provided by Cambridge University. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Cambridge University or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Tuesday 14 March 2017 Dr Alex da Costa (University Lecturer at the Faculty of English; Fellow of Newnham College) 'The Pardoner's Passing and How it Matters: Gender, Relics and Speech Acts' For decades, critics have been ignoring the particular doubt ‘Chaucer’, the narrator, raises over the figure of the Pardoner in the Canterbury Tales when he says ‘I trowe he were a geldyng or a mare’ (l.691). Even as the Pardoner has been embraced as a ‘a complicated sort of gay “ancestor”’ by first gay and lesbian studies and later by queer theorists, just one critic has been prepared to doubt his essential masculinity, though several have accepted his masculinity as neutered or castrated. The question of whether the Pardoner is a ‘mare’, a woman passing as a man, has thus been ignored, despite being the most straightforward gloss, until Jeffrey Rayner Myers ventured to suggest in 2000 that ‘this sexually ambiguous character might be a woman.’ This critical lacuna is all the more puzzling given that when Chaucer was writing there were several texts in which writers presented women passing as men. The widely circulated Gilte Legende included two saints lives in which a female dresses, lives and passes as male, without suspicion, until her death. Gower included the legend of Iphis and Achilles’ successful disguise as a maid in the Confessio Amantis. There were also Old French texts with similar episodes, such as Yde et Olive and the Roman de Silence, while Boccaccio included the tale of Pope Joan in De mulieribus claris, as well as the stories of a female disguised as an abbot and a steward in the Decameron (Day II, Tales III and IX). In this paper, I want to explore the possibility that the Pardoner is a woman passing as a man and to show how such a reading allows a parallel to emerge between the figure of the Pardoner, relics and oaths, bringing out a narrative interest across general prologue, prologue and tale in accident and substance, doubt and complicity.
  continue reading

61 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 

Archived series ("Inactive feed" status)

When? This feed was archived on July 14, 2019 01:36 (4+ y ago). Last successful fetch was on May 22, 2019 05:37 (5y ago)

Why? Inactive feed status. Our servers were unable to retrieve a valid podcast feed for a sustained period.

What now? You might be able to find a more up-to-date version using the search function. This series will no longer be checked for updates. If you believe this to be in error, please check if the publisher's feed link below is valid and contact support to request the feed be restored or if you have any other concerns about this.

Manage episode 226156125 series 2480165
Content provided by Cambridge University. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Cambridge University or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Tuesday 14 March 2017 Dr Alex da Costa (University Lecturer at the Faculty of English; Fellow of Newnham College) 'The Pardoner's Passing and How it Matters: Gender, Relics and Speech Acts' For decades, critics have been ignoring the particular doubt ‘Chaucer’, the narrator, raises over the figure of the Pardoner in the Canterbury Tales when he says ‘I trowe he were a geldyng or a mare’ (l.691). Even as the Pardoner has been embraced as a ‘a complicated sort of gay “ancestor”’ by first gay and lesbian studies and later by queer theorists, just one critic has been prepared to doubt his essential masculinity, though several have accepted his masculinity as neutered or castrated. The question of whether the Pardoner is a ‘mare’, a woman passing as a man, has thus been ignored, despite being the most straightforward gloss, until Jeffrey Rayner Myers ventured to suggest in 2000 that ‘this sexually ambiguous character might be a woman.’ This critical lacuna is all the more puzzling given that when Chaucer was writing there were several texts in which writers presented women passing as men. The widely circulated Gilte Legende included two saints lives in which a female dresses, lives and passes as male, without suspicion, until her death. Gower included the legend of Iphis and Achilles’ successful disguise as a maid in the Confessio Amantis. There were also Old French texts with similar episodes, such as Yde et Olive and the Roman de Silence, while Boccaccio included the tale of Pope Joan in De mulieribus claris, as well as the stories of a female disguised as an abbot and a steward in the Decameron (Day II, Tales III and IX). In this paper, I want to explore the possibility that the Pardoner is a woman passing as a man and to show how such a reading allows a parallel to emerge between the figure of the Pardoner, relics and oaths, bringing out a narrative interest across general prologue, prologue and tale in accident and substance, doubt and complicity.
  continue reading

61 episodes

All episodes

×
 
Loading …

Welcome to Player FM!

Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.

 

Quick Reference Guide