The Fierce Parade: Chaucer and the Encryption of Homosexuality in the "Canterbury Tales"

Description: Exploring details and multilingual and multidialectical puns and etymologies through a "Proustian lens," Surber discovers sustained attention to homosexuality in CT. Critical uncertainty about specific meaning in Chaucer enables a queer reading that grafts "the other logos of sexuality" onto the "tree of heterosexual discourse." Surber reads GP, the tales, and the links between the tales as indicative that the majority of the pilgrims are homosexual. These components of CT disclose Chaucer's Platonic embrace of homosexuality and celebration of the "first male trio of Gods of Eden, namely God, Adam and Eve." Surber appends a survey of attitudes toward homosexuality in the ancient world and medieval Church.