Gender and Language in Chaucer

"Builds expertly and significantly on several earlier feminist analyses of Chaucer’s works. . . . An important addition to the growing body of work devoted to Chaucer and gender. . . . One of the real strengths of this work is the way in which it ties medieval notions of gender both to ancient, Aristotelian views and to modern and postmodern feminist theories."--Laura Howes, University of Tennessee, Knoxville"A seminal critical text in Chaucer and medieval studies. . . . Thoroughly enjoyable."--Liam Purdon, Doane College, Crete, NebraskaCatherine S. Cox considers the significance of gender in relation to language and poetics in Chaucer’s writing. Examining selections from The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, The Legend of Good Women, and the ballades, she explores Chaucer’s concern with gender and language both within the context of fourteenth-century culture and in light of contemporary feminist and poststructuralist theory.Cox argues that Chaucer’s attention to gender and language exposes the contradictory notions of woman in medieval culture. Further, resisting the imposition of modern, reductive theoretical concerns on medieval authors, Cox makes a compelling case for a Chaucer who both confirms and challenges the orthodoxy of his day, thereby countering recent arguments that insist upon a wholly feminist or wholly patriarchal Chaucer.Informed by a broad range of traditional literary and historical scholarship (including Aristotelian philosophy, medieval Latin culture, and the writings of the Church fathers) as well as by recent psychoanalytical debates related to postmodern feminist critical theory (including those of Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and feminist film theorists), Cox’s study demonstrates the significant interplay among ancient, medieval, and modern issues of scholarship and learning.Catherine S. Cox is assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, and the author of articles on Dante, Henryson, and other medieval writers.

Literature & Fiction

Cox, Catherine S.

History & Criticism

University Press of Florida

"Builds expertly and significantly on several earlier feminist analyses of Chaucer’s works. . . . An important addition to the growing body of work devoted to Chaucer and gender. . . . One of the real strengths of this work is the way in which it ties medieval notions of gender both to ancient, Aristotelian views and to modern and postmodern feminist theories."--Laura Howes, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
"A seminal critical text in Chaucer and medieval studies. . . . Thoroughly enjoyable."--Liam Purdon, Doane College, Crete, Nebraska
Catherine S. Cox considers the significance of gender in relation to language and poetics in Chaucer’s writing. Examining selections from The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, The Legend of Good Women, and the ballades, she explores Chaucer’s concern with gender and language both within the context of fourteenth-century culture and in light of contemporary feminist and poststructuralist theory. Cox argues that Chaucer’s attention to gender and language exposes the contradictory notions of woman in medieval culture. Further, resisting the imposition of modern, reductive theoretical concerns on medieval authors, Cox makes a compelling case for a Chaucer who both confirms and challenges the orthodoxy of his day, thereby countering recent arguments that insist upon a wholly feminist or wholly patriarchal Chaucer. Informed by a broad range of traditional literary and historical scholarship (including Aristotelian philosophy, medieval Latin culture, and the writings of the Church fathers) as well as by recent psychoanalytical debates related to postmodern feminist critical theory (including those of Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and feminist film theorists), Cox’s study demonstrates the significant interplay among ancient, medieval, and modern issues of scholarship and learning.
Catherine S. Cox is assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, and the author of articles on Dante, Henryson, and other medieval writers.

This book explores the late medieval literary legacy of early Christianity’s relationship to its Judaic origins. Catherine S. Cox demonstrates how the works of three canonical 14th-century authors—Dante, the Gawain-poet, and Chaucer—express conflicting aspects of Jewish and Christian religious identity. In their support of Christianity’s view of history, she argues, their poetry replicates Christianity’s inclination to appropriate and reconstruct Jewish texts.   All three writers shared the challenge of reconciling their Christian agenda with their literary agenda and their desire to excel as artists while perpetuating an evangelical message. Looking at some of their major texts—in particular, the Commedia, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Canterbury Tales—she situates their work in relation to the history of supersessionism and its ideological perspectives. She demonstrates that their representations of the Judaic “Other” and their exclusion of Hebrew scriptural tradition helped establish an instructive frame for late medieval theological, literary, and cultural debate.    By engaging ancient scholarship with contemporary theory, Cox offers provocative readings of both the texts and the cultural conditions from which they emerged and in which they were received. Informed by a broad range of literary, historical and recent critical debates, her study will bring about a new understanding of numerous and sometimes perplexing aspects of work by monumental figures in literary history.    

The Judaic Other in Dante, the Gawain Poet, and Chaucer

Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1380-87) is Geoffrey Chaucer's classic poem in rhyme royal (rime royale, seven line stanzas rhyming ababbcc) re-telling the tragic love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Criseyde. Scholarly consensus is that Chaucer completed Troilus and Criseyde by the mid 1380's. Many Chaucer scholars regard this as his best work, even including the better known but incomplete Canterbury Tales. The tragedy of Troilus and Criseyde is one of the greatest narrative poems in English literature. Set during the siege of Troy, it tells how the young knight Troilus, son of King Priam, falls in love with Criseyde, a beautiful widow. Brought together by Criseyde's uncle, Pandarus, the lovers are then forced apart by the events of war, which test their oaths of fidelity and trust to the limits. Described by Barry Windeatt as Chaucer's "most ambitious single achievement, his masterpiece," Troilus and Criseyde is the first work in English to depict human passion with such sympathy and understanding.

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: Subgit to Alle Poesye: Essays in Criticism (Pegasus Paperbacks,)

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Chicago Special Occasion Sourcebook, Revised and Expanded

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Books by Cox, Catherine S.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cox, Catherine S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Gender and Language in Chaucer

Gender and Language in Chaucer

The Judaic Other in Dante, the Gawain Poet, and Chaucer

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: Subgit to Alle Poesye: Essays in Criticism (Pegasus Paperbacks,)

Chicago Special Occasion Sourcebook, Revised and Expanded