Devotion and Defilement: The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Corporeal Hagiographics of Chaucer's 'Prioress's Tale'

Author / Editor
Rambuss, Richard.

Title
Devotion and Defilement: The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Corporeal Hagiographics of Chaucer's 'Prioress's Tale'

Published
Lori Hope Lefkovitz, ed. Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary Representation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 75-99.

Description
The Prioress's identification with the little clergeon of PrT and her elisions of history indicate a "desire for transcendence" rather than sentimentality. The presence of bodily violence and prurience in PrT accords well with some of the "corporealities" traditionally attributed to the Virgin Mary, situating the "Tale" firmly in the genre of miracles of the Virgin.

Contributor
Lefkovitz, Lori Hope,ed.

Alternative Title
Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary Representation.

Chaucer Subjects
Prioress and Her Tale.