Chaucer's Legendary Good Women

A comprehensive account of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women.

Florence Percival (Author)

9780521020824, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 October 2005

356 pages
22.8 x 15.7 x 2.2 cm, 0.533 kg

"Percival grounds her argument in an analysis of an impressive array of literatures and genres of the period, including marguerite poetry, palinodes, courtly debates, anti-feminist tracts, and political writing, as well as Chaucer's classical sources." Rebecca L. Schoff

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.

Introduction
Part I. Chaucer's Good Woman: 1. The good woman: the daisy
2. Alceste: the good woman of legend
3. The good woman: a legendary beast? Part II. The God of Love: 4. The God of love
5. The accusation
6. The defence: tyrants of Lombardy
7. The defence: Matere and Entente
Part III. The Palinode: The Legends of a Good Woman: 8. Ariadne: the ladies and the critics
9. Medea: the ladies and their reputations
10. Cleopatra: legend of Cupid's saint
11. Dido: composite woman
12. Lucrece: too good to be true? 13. Phyllis and inherited male perfidy
Part IV. The Legend as Courtly Game: Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]