"A Pregnant Argument": Bodies and Literacies in Dante's "Comedy," Chaucer's "Troilus," and Henryson's "Testament."

Author / Editor
Shoaf, R. Allen.

Title
"A Pregnant Argument": Bodies and Literacies in Dante's "Comedy," Chaucer's "Troilus," and Henryson's "Testament."

Published
Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in Honour of Margaret Bridges (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 193-208.

Description
Explores verbal play with walls and words in Dante's allusion to Pyramus and Thisbe in his "Commedia"; Chaucer's uses of enclosure and openness in TC in light of his own allusion to the love pair (TC 5.1247-48); and Henryson's closing off of Cresseid's legacy in his "Testament," anagrammatized in the first letters of his reference to Chaucer ("FICTIO," at "Testament" 58-63). Includes concern with gender, literacy, and the need to consider a broader idea of gendered "literacies."

Alternative Title
Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion