Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 3215
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Lowe , Kate.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Ethics and Interpretation: Reading Wills in Chaucer's "Legend of Good Women" ["I argue that Chaucer represents himself working within a tyrannical textual 'community,' and that he asks us faithfully to intuit an unstated and unstatable intention that, by virtue of being unstatable, is necessarily outside the work. The faith we exercise in intuiting that intention offers an alternative both to the tyrannical reading of his patron and to the brutal faithlessness depicted in the legends themselves. Chaucer provokes us to recognize that our interpretive practice has ethical implications, since the issues involved in interpretation are no different from the issues of the 'real world' in the narratives themselves. He sharpens this provocation by suggesting resonances between the 'legend' and the last will of a dying author." (Page 74)].
  • Source: Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20, ( 1998): Pages 73 - 100.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Alceste (Literary Figure) Chaucer, Geoffrey, Poet- Legend of Good Women Cupid (Literary Figure) Literature- Verse Narrator
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 14
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  • Author's Affiliation: Goldsmiths' College, University of London
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1998.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 01902407