Abstract
In the Conclusion to his book, Gust uses material from Book Five of Troilus and Criseyde to drive home the argument that there are distinct strands of historical connection between pre- and post-modern pornographic artistry. As Gust illustrates throughout his study, the sexually suggestive language used by Geoffrey Chaucer evidently carried with it an erotic charge that could stimulate and sexually titillate various literary audiences in late medieval England. In sum, the notion of Chaucerotics is shown to be a useful theoretical concept that brings to light that certain sections of Chaucer’s writing did carry pornographic possibilities to his medieval audience, while scholarly readers—past and present—have too often undersold the erotic potential of Chaucerian sex in The Canterbury Tales and beyond.
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- 1.
Line taken from Homer’s Iliad, in a passage recounting the many gifts—including women and sex—that Achilles might be given by Agamemnon. I quote from pg. 78 of the Penguin Books translation by Robert Fagles (New York, 1990).
- 2.
So stated the Marquis de Sade, as detailed in Geoffrey Gorer’s study The Marquis de Sade: A Short Account of His Life and Work (Livewright Publishing, 1934), p. 202.
- 3.
These three quotes, respectively, are from Nora Ephron, Andy Warhol, and Alfred Kinsey. I have taken them from: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), pp. 342–343; Warhol’s irreverent The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (Orlando: Harcourt Books, 1975), p. 44; and Chris Donaghue’s Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture (Dallas: BenBella Books, 2015), p. 25.
- 4.
Molly A. Martin, “Troilus’s Gaze and the Collapse of Masculinity in Romance,” in Men and Masculinities in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Pugh and Marzec, p. 145 [132–147].
- 5.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.102–105.
- 6.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.128, 132–134.
- 7.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.152–154, 157–158.
- 8.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.460–462.
- 9.
The most famous example of this suggestive usage is found in the opening lines of The General Prologue, where Chaucer the Pilgrim describes: “The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne/ Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,/ And smale foweles maken melodye,/ That slepen al the nyght with open ye” (The General Prologue 1.7–10).
- 10.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.472–475.
- 11.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.568–570.
- 12.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.720–721.
- 13.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1010–1015.
- 14.
It is worth recalling that Chaucer also alters the build-up to the consummation in Book III. Here in Book V, however, there is not much depth and detail, and comparatively little realism, so that the text does not mirror the characters’ growing erotic desire in quite the same fashion.
- 15.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5. 1016–1017.
- 16.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1030–1036.
- 17.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1240–1241.
- 18.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1238, 1516–1519.
- 19.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.806–812.
- 20.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.813–826.
- 21.
On these points, see Donaldson, “Four Women of Style,” pp. 47, 52, 58; and also “Criseide and Her Narrator,” p. 83.
- 22.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1819–1825
- 23.
Troilus and Criseyde, 4.395–396. Continuing, he tells his friend that there are other suitable ladies to be found, because his niece is replaceable and not even as beautiful as some other women: “This town is ful of ladys al aboute;/ And, to my doom, fairer than swiche twelve/ As evere she was…/ Forthi be glad, myn owen deere brother!/ If she be lost, we shal recovere an other.” (4.401–406).
- 24.
Troilus and Criseyde, 4.407–411.
- 25.
Troilus and Criseyde, 4.415, 419–420.
- 26.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1607–1608, 1614, 1624.
- 27.
See especially my introduction to this book, where I provide a comprehensive historical account of the persona and its distancing-effect, and offer the fresh theoretical concept of autofiction as a lens through which to view Chaucer’s verse. Geoffrey W. Gust, Constructing Chaucer: Author and Autofiction in the Critical Tradition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
- 28.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1786, 1856, 1857.
- 29.
Troilus and Criseyde, 5.1837–1840.
- 30.
Of course, for this question to be valid and useful it is important to emphasize (once again) that Chaucer must be considered within a broad pornographic literary tradition, but also seen particularly within the context of late medieval literature and its distinct traditions—precisely the approach that has been taken in this book.
- 31.
Once again, I cite Wagner’s definition from his important study Eros Revived, p. 7. And I have also referenced once more the modern definition of the term provided by the online version of Webster’s Dictionary.
- 32.
On these points, see Braddy, “Chaucer—Realism or Obscenity?,” pp. 122, 125, 131, 136.
- 33.
Again, see Braddy, “Chaucer—Realism or Obscenity?,” pp. 133, 136, 137.
- 34.
Jonathan Dollimore, Sex, Literature and Censorship (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001), pp. 164, 165.
Works Cited
Braddy, Haldeen. 1969. Chaucer—Realism or Obscenity? The Arlington Quarterly 2 (1): 121–138.
Dollimore, Jonathan. 2001. Sex, Literature and Censorship. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Donaghue, Chris. 2015. Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture. Dallas: BenBella Books.
Donaldson, E.T. 1970a. Criseide and Her Narrator. In Speaking of Chaucer, 65–83. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
———. 1970b. The Masculine Narrator and Four Women of Style. In Speaking of Chaucer, 46–64. New York: W.W. Norton.
Gorer, Geoffrey. 1934. The Marquis de Sade: A Short Account of His Life and Work. Livewright Publishing.
Gust, Geoffrey W. 2009. Constructing Chaucer: Author and Autofiction in the Critical Tradition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Homer. 1990. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books.
Martin, Molly A. 2008. Troilus’s Gaze and the Collapse of Masculinity in Romance. In Men and Masculinities in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Tison Pugh and Marcia Smith Marzec, 132–147. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer.
The Riverside Chaucer. 1987. Edited by Larry D. Benson. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Wagner, Peter. 1988. Eros Revived: Erotica of the Enlightenment in England and America. London: Secker & Warburg.
Warhol, Andy. 1975. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again. Orlando: Harcourt Books.
Webster’s Dictionary. Available online at http://www.merriam-webster.com/.
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. 1999. Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. New York: Anchor Books.
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Gust, G.W. (2018). Conclusion: Uncloaking the Language of Sex in The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. In: Chaucerotics. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89746-2_8
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