Good Vibrations : John/Eleanor, Dame Alys, the Pardoner, and Foucault

Author / Editor
Dinshaw, Carolyn.

Title
Good Vibrations : John/Eleanor, Dame Alys, the Pardoner, and Foucault

Published
Carolyn Dinshaw. Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 100-142.

Description
Explores how the Pardoner and his interruption of WBP challenge the heteronormativity of CT. The opening lines of GP and WBT establish a heterosexual norm that the presence of the Pardoner challenges by making clear the constructed and contestable nature of the norm, a challenge similar to Lollard heterodoxy. Observes similarities between CkT and a London record of a cross-dressing prostitute; argues that fiction and archives can together be used to construct a queer history, important to a queer future.

Alternative Title
Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern.

Chaucer Subjects
Pardoner and His Tale.
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
Cook and His Tale.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.