Locating Authorial Ethics: The Idea of the 'Male' or Book-Bag in the 'Canterbury Tales' and Other Middle English Poems

Author / Editor
Leitch, Megan G.

Title
Locating Authorial Ethics: The Idea of the 'Male' or Book-Bag in the 'Canterbury Tales' and Other Middle English Poems

Published
ChauR 46.4 (2012): 403-18.

Description
In the five instances in which "male," meaning "bag or pouch" or "holder of writing," appears in CT, the word can also mean "man, male gender, or genitals," "stomach," and "wrongdoing." Through this wordplay, Chaucer reveals his anxieties about the type of author he might be, and about the relationships between authorship and sinfulness and spirituality.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification
Language and Word Studies
Canterbury Tales--General