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Can an outrageously immoral man or a scandalous woman teach morality or lead people to virtue? Does personal fallibility devalue one's words and deeds? Is it possible to separate the private from the public, to segregate individual failing from official function? Chaucer addressed these perennial issues through two problematic authority figures, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner dares to assume official roles to which he has no legal claim and for which he is quite unsuited. We are faced with the shocking consequences of the belief, standard for the time, that immorality is not necessarily a bar to effective ministry. Even more subversively, the Wife of Bath, who represents one of the most despised stereotypes in medieval literature, the sexually rapacious widow, dispenses wisdom of the highest order. This innovative book places these "fallible authors" within the full intellectual context that gave them meaning. Alastair Minnis magisterially examines the impact of Aristotelian thought on preaching theory, the controversial practice of granting indulgences, religious and medical categorizations of deviant bodies, theological attempts to rationalize sex within marriage, Wycliffite doctrine that made authority dependent on individual grace and raised the specter of Donatism, and heretical speculation concerning the possibility of female teachers. Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath are revealed as interconnected aspects of a single radical experiment wherein the relationship between objective authority and subjective fallibility is confronted as never before.

Literature --- History and criticism. --- Chaucer, Geoffrey, --- Appraisal of books --- Books --- Evaluation of literature --- Criticism --- Literary style --- Appraisal --- Evaluation --- Cultural Studies. --- Literature. --- Chaucer, geoffrey (1340?-1400). the pardoner's tale --- Chaucer, geoffrey (1340?-1400). the wife of bath's tale

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“In the earliest versions [of the Loathly Lady tales], the Irish sovereignty hag tales, her excessive body allegorizes the nature of sovereignty; the Loathly Lady is the shape of success in power contestation. Because the vehicle of the allegory is gendered, however, and because the motif’s fictional flesh is sexually active, these ideas about control are entangled with personal power politics. These factors make the motif curiously promiscuous, an intersection of ideas that generates other ideas, sometimes unexpectedly, always provocatively. . . . “ This volume concentrates on the medieval English Loathly Lady tales, written a little later than the Irish tales, and developing the motif as a vehicle for social ideology. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale” and John Gower’s “Tale of Florent” are the better known of the English Loathly Lady tales, but “The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle,” the balladic versions—the “Marriage of Sir Gawain” and “King Henry” (and even “Thomas of Erceldoune”)—all use shape-shifting female flesh to convey ideas about the nature of women, about heretosexual relations, and about national identity.”—from the Introduction

820 "04/14" --- Engelse literatuur--Middeleeuwen --- 820 "04/14" Engelse literatuur--Middeleeuwen --- English poetry --- Women in literature. --- Metamorphosis in literature. --- Counseling in literature. --- Sovereignty in literature. --- Romances, English --- Ballads, English --- Ballads, English. --- Romances, English. --- Frau --- Mittelenglische Literatur --- Mittelenglisch. --- Motiv (Literatur). --- Frau. --- Metamorphose (Mythologie). --- Lyrik. --- Versdichtung. --- History and criticism --- History and criticism. --- Middle English. --- Motiv --- Mittelenglische Literatur. --- Gower, John, --- Chaucer, Geoffrey, --- Gawain, --- Gawain. --- Gower, John; Confessio amantis. --- Chaucer, Geoffrey; The Canterbury tales. --- Chaucer, Geoffrey --- Romances --- Studies. --- Confessio amantis (Gower, John). --- Wife of Bath's tale (Chaucer, Geoffrey). --- 1100 - 1500. --- England. --- Gauvain (personnage fictif) --- Gower, John (1325?-1408). Confessio amantis --- Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400). The wife of bath's tale --- Poésie anglaise --- Femmes --- Métamorphose (littérature) --- Souveraineté --- Roman courtois anglais --- Ballades anglaises --- Histoire et critique --- 1100-1500 (moyen anglais) --- Dans la littérature --- Angleterre (GB)