Women's Pity and Women's Power: Chaucer's Prioress Reconsidered

Author / Editor
Meale, Carol M.

Title
Women's Pity and Women's Power: Chaucer's Prioress Reconsidered

Published
A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse, and Thorlac Turville-Petre, eds. Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of J. A. Burrow (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), pp. 39-60.

Description
Argues that Chaucer was familiar with the realities of female monastic existence but chose to create his GP sketch of the Prioress from literary satire. The spirituality of PrT, however, is particularly apt for females, and many discussions of the relation between the teller and the "Tale" ignore their discontinuities and seek chimerical unity.

Alternative Title
Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of J. A. Burrow.

Chaucer Subjects
Prioress and Her Tale.
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.