The Disenchanted Self

Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Tales

H. Marshall Leicester Jr.

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520068339
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520341241
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: Literature

The question of the "dramatic principle" in the Canterbury Tales, of whether and how the individual tales relate to the pilgrims who are supposed to tell them, has long been a central issue in the interpretation of Chaucer's work. Drawing on ideas from deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and social theory, Leicester proposes that Chaucer can lead us beyond the impasses of contemporary literary theory and suggests new approaches to questions of agency, representation, and the gendered imagination. Leicester reads the Canterbury Tales as radically voiced and redefines concepts like "self" and "character" in the light of current discussions of language and subjectivity. He argues for Chaucer's disenchanted practical understanding of the constructed character of the self, gender, and society, building his case through close readings of the Pardoner's, Wife of Bath's, and Knight's tales. His study is among the first major treatments of Chaucer's poetry utilizing the techniques of contemporary literary theory and provides new models for reading the poems while revising many older views of them and of Chaucer's relation to his age.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• I. CHAUCER'S SUBJECT
• 1. The Pardoner as Disenchanted Consciousness and Despairing Self
• 2. Self-Presentation and Disenchantment in the Wife of Bath's Prologue: A Prospective View
• 3. Retrospective Revision and the Emergence of the Subject in the Wife of Bath's Prologue
• 4. Janekyn's Book: The Subject as Text
• 5. Subjectivity and Disenchantment: The Wife of Bath's Tale as Institutional Critique
• 2. THE SUBJECT ENGENDERED
• 6. The Pardoner as Subject: Deconstruction and Practical Consciousness
• 7. From Deconstruction to Psychoanalysis and Beyond: Disenchantment and the "Masculine" Imagination
• 8. The "Feminine" Imagination and Jouissattce
• 3. THE INSTITUTION OF THE SUBJECT: A Reading of the Knight's Tale
• 9. The Knight's Critique of Genre I: Ambivalence and Generic Style
• 10. The Knight's Critique of Genre II: From Representation to Revision
• 11. Regarding Knighthood: A Practical Critique of the "Masculine" Gaze
• 12. The Unhousing of the Gods: Character, Habitus, and Necessity in Part III
• 13. Choosing Manhood: The "Masculine" Imagination and the Institution of the Subject
• 14. Doing Knighthood: Heroic Disenchantment and the Subject of Chivalry
• Conclusion: The Disenchanted Self
• Works Cited
• Index