Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 1761
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Newton , Allyson.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: The Occlusion of Maternity in Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale"
  • Source: Medieval Mothering.  Edited by John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler.  Garland Publishing, 1996.  Pages 63 - 75.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Chaucer, Geoffrey, Poet- Canterbury Tales- Clerk's Tale Griselda (Literary Figure) Literature- Verse Mothers in Literature Patriarchy in Literature Women in Literature
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 14
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale" charts an anxious trajectory set by Aristotelian and Aquinian theories of motherhood, in which the paternal structures of lineage and succession appropriate , and thereby occlude, the role of the mother. [Reproduced by permission of Garland Publishing.]
  • Table:
  • Abstract:
  • Related Resources: Allyson Newton brings a Lacanian perspective to her analysis of Chaucer's Clerk's Tale." She argues that the story exposes a deep-rooted anxiety in patriarchy which perceived a threat inherent in the mother's role in ensuring succession. Men feared matern
  • Author's Affiliation: Asbury College
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1996.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0815323417