Chaucer's Legendary Good Women

Florence Percival

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 1998
• Print ISBN: 9780521416559
• eBook ISBN: 9780511833335
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

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

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Note on the text
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• I Chaucer's Good Woman
• II The God of Love
• III The Palinode
• IV The Legends of good women
• V The Legend as courtly game
• Epilogue
• Index