The 'Elvyssh' Power of Constance : Christian Feminism in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Man of Law's Tale

Author / Editor
Robertson, Elizabeth.

Title
The 'Elvyssh' Power of Constance : Christian Feminism in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Man of Law's Tale

Published
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23: 143-80, 2001.

Description
Through various alignments of Muslim and Christian characters and transgressions of social and gender boundaries, Chaucer "defamiliarizes" essentialist categories of race, class, gender, and especially religion in MLT. In particular, Chaucer depicts in Constance an ineffable ideal of Christianity--an unusual feminine alternative to dominant hierarchical orthodoxy, perhaps inspired by Lollardy but not congenial to many Lollard tenets. Chaucer's depictions of race and religion are similar to Wolfram von Eschenbach's in "Parzival."
For revised version, see "Nonviolent Christianity and the Strangeness of Female Power in Geoffrey Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale."

Chaucer Subjects
Man of Law and His Tale.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.