Pedagogy, Violence, and the Subject of Music: Chaucer's 'Prioress's Tale' and the Ideologies of 'Song'

Author / Editor
Holsinger, Bruce W.

Title
Pedagogy, Violence, and the Subject of Music: Chaucer's 'Prioress's Tale' and the Ideologies of 'Song'

Published
New Medieval Literatures 1 (1997): 157-92

Description
Both ManT and PrT reflect the violence inherent in medieval teaching of music, especially evident in the role of tactile solmization--through the use of the Guidonian hand--in ecclesiastical tradition. In both, Chaucer suggests that music fuels the violence of the "narrative progression from pedagogy to martyrdom and massacre."

Chaucer Subjects
Prioress and Her Tale.
Manciple and His Tale.