Work, Sexuality and Urban Domestic Living: Masculinity and Literature, c 1360- c 1420.
- Author/Editor
- Davis, Isabel Melanie.
- Title
- Work, Sexuality and Urban Domestic Living: Masculinity and Literature, c 1360- c 1420.
- Published
- Davis, Isabel Melanie. Work, Sexuality and Urban Domestic Living: Masculinity and Literature, c 1360- c 1420. Ph.D. Dissertation. The University of York, 2002. Dissertation Abstracts International C67.02. Abstract available via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
- Review
- "This thesis investigates a particular discourse which conflated ideas of male sexuality and work. It argues that, although this lexical and conceptual elision was not new to the late-medieval period, it was invested with new significance in the particular social and economic climate of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century London. In particular the labour shortages, effected by the demographic crises of earlier fourteenth century, generated a moral fashion for discussions about work as a force for social cohesion. Despite the relevance of women's work to the contemporary economy, social and economic regeneration was often considered to be a male responsibility. In the capital, a particular commission was given to male householders to keep the peace and regulate labour, rendering men's domestic lives central to the administration of social and economic order. This thesis is organized around five major authors of the period--William Langland, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Usk, John Gower and Thomas Hoccleve--and considers how their works engaged with this discursive tradition. A strong difference is discerned between the work of Chaucer and that of his near contemporaries. The literary efforts of Langland, Usk, Gower and Hoccleve are demonstrably more anxious about the condition of society and, in their different ways, they represent narrators who are at odds with the systems of masculine ethics they propose. In contrast, Chaucer's narrators are not so central to his poetry and they exist comfortably along side a plurality of other speakers, a plurality which is unchallenged by a unifying moral code. In particular 'The Canterbury Tales' celebrates male enterprise and play in a way which demonstrates an acceptance of contemporary social challenges. At the same time, the characters of Troilus and the Canon's Yeoman are portraits of interior anxiety which operate as a commentary on contemporary moral concerns about male responsibilities."
- Date
- 2002
- Gower Subjects
- Backgrounds and General Criticism