Chaucer's Approach to Gender in the "Canterbury Tales,"

Description: CT resists the dominant medieval gender discourses that it inscribes.; Competition between Chaucer's male narrators and characters both reveals and challenges masculine stereotypes of the hero, the lover, and the intellectual.; Tales of masculine spirituality question behavioral norms. ParsT addresses the social conflicts of the frame-narrative by inviting men to "repudiate the competitiveness of the world."; Women who compete with men are "rebellious"; "obedient" women are pitied as outcasts and victims, but "the narrators perceive this condition as 'acceptable.'"; The female narrators are wrapped within layers of male discourse, but, especially in WBP and WBT, this layering helps to set up an ultimately liberating blurring of gender boundaries.

Chaucer Subjects: Canterbury Tales--General.; Wife of Bath and Her Tale.; Parson and His Tale.