Chaucer's Legendary Good Women

by Florence Percival

• ISBN13: 9780521416559
• ISBN10: 0521416558
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Chaucer's Legend of Good Women is a testament to the disparate views of women prevalent in the Middle Ages. Dr Percival contends that the complex medieval notion of Woman informs the structure of the poem: in the Prologue Chaucer praises conventional ideas of female virtue, while in the Legends he demonstrates a humorous scepticism, apparently influenced by a contemporary antifeminist tradition. The debate Chaucer thus promotes could be relied on to entertain many medieval readers, at the same time that it demonstrates the power of the vernacular translator/poet to handle language wittily and to do just as he pleases with the august texts of the past. This is a comprehensive account of the Legend's interpretative puzzles, which does not ignore the element of political writing, and adds to a close and nuanced reading of the text an examination of literary, historical, and social contexts.

Table of Contents

Note on the text	x	(1)
Abbreviations	xi
Introduction	1	(20)
I Chaucer's Good Woman	21	(56)
1 The Good Woman: the daisy	23	(20)
2 Alceste: the Good Woman of legend	43	(16)
3 The Good Woman: a legendary beast?	59	(18)
II The God of Love	77	(72)
4 The God of Love	79	(17)
5 The accusation	96	(17)
6 The defence: tyrants of Lombardy	113	(17)
7 The defence: matere and entente	130	(19)
III The Palinode	149	(22)
8 The Palinode	151	(20)
IV The Legends of good women	171	(126)
9 Ariadne: the ladies and the critics	173	(26)
10 Medea: the ladies and their reputations	199	(22)
11 Cleopatra: legend of Cupid's saint	221	(18)
12 Dido: composite woman	239	(22)
13 Lucrece: too good to be true?	261	(23)
14 Phyllis and inherited male perfidy	284	(13)
V The Legend as courtly game	297	(28)
15 The Legend as courtly game	299	(26)
Epilogue	325	(8)
Index	333