Women and Geoffrey Chaucer

Author / Editor
Murtaugh, Daniel M.

Title
Women and Geoffrey Chaucer

Published
ELH 38 (1971): 473-92.

Description
Explores the complementary relations between two "fantasies" about women that underlie Chaucer's Marriage Group: clerkly abuse rooted in patristic tradition (particularly Jerome) and courtly idealization rooted in "fin amour" (especially Jean de Meun). Argues that, taken toegther, WBPT, ClT, MerT, and FranT evince Chaucer's insistence that human love must be free and that "women are the moral equals of men."

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Merchant and His Tale
Franklin and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations