Chaucer's Pardoner: His Sexuality and Modern Critics

Author / Editor
Benson, C. David.

Title
Chaucer's Pardoner: His Sexuality and Modern Critics

Published
Mediaevalia 8 (1985 for 1982): 337-49

Description
The Pardoner should be read not as a real person but as an allegorical figure. Modern discussions overemphasize the Pardoner's sexuality and distort the fact that hints about his sexuality prepare for the more important concern with his ecclesiastical abuses. The Prologue to the "Tale of Beryn" indicates that the Pardoner was a womanizer.

Chaucer Subjects
Pardoner and His Tale.
Chaucerian Apocrypha