Of Giants : Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages

Author / Editor
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome.

Title
Of Giants : Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages

Published
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

Physical Description
xx, 235 pp.

Series
Medieval Cultures, no. 17

Description
Argues that giants can represent the lost prehistory of the masculine body and therefore figure its present and dangerous instability. Six chapters and an introduction focus on the English Middle Ages. Chapter 4 (pp. 96-118) discusses Chaucer's Th, arguing that by translating the familiar battle against the giant from romance into comedy, Th diminishes the sexual threat that the giant encodes. Fragment 7 of CT is organized by concern with the instability of male sexuality.

Chaucer Subjects
Tale of Sir Thopas.