The Problem of the Performative in Chaucer's Prioress Sequence
- Author / Editor
- Orth, William.
The Problem of the Performative in Chaucer's Prioress Sequence
- Published
- ChauR 42 (2007): 196-210.
- Description
- Whereas the GP portrait of the Prioress raises questions about the operation of performances in general, we see in PrPT the efficacy of performative utterances in particular. Details of the boy's murder and postmortem singing demonstrate that the success of such an utterance rests on a speaker's understanding of its "perlocutionary object."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Prioress and Her Tale