Love in a Cold Climate: The Future of Feminism and Gender Studies in Middle English Scholarship

Abstract

This article has two purposes: the first is to survey new approaches to gender studies in scholarship on Middle English literature; the second is to outline the continuing marginalization of gender studies in the field of Middle English scholarship and the consequences of this, both for the future of the discipline and for gender studies. , two paper sessions were devoted to gender studies themes, out of a total of approximately 40 panels. And yet, closer examination reveals that it is only in the field's most prestigious venues that feminism's fortunes have declined. Outside of these realms, there continues to be a strong interest in questions of gender and sexuality and considerable scholarly activity. Indeed, the overall production of gender-based analyses of Middle English literature has remained remarkably consistent from the mid-1990s right up to the present day. A year-by-year search for articles and books on Middle English texts in the MLA bibliography using the keyword 'gender' gives us a graduallyincreasing number of returns, beginning with four articles in 1986. In 1994, during the brief time when feminism was favored by the field's elites, the yearly total reaches 16. 4 By 2000, when the prestige value of feminism was on the decline, enthusiasm for gender-based analysis was still growing, as reflected in the 21 articles on the subject published that year. Since 2000, the number of gender studies articles has remained in the mid-twenties every year (peaking with 29 articles in 2003) until 2006, the most recent year for which complete records are available.Moreover, the study of gender in Middle English literature has proven remarkably fertile, diversifying into a wide variety of approaches over the last two decades. The movement that began with a second-wave feminist interest in examining treatments of the feminine and female characters in medieval texts and in recovering lost works by women writers (Williams 1005-6) has grown into a vigorous subfield that includes studies inflected with psychoanalysis, historicism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, cultural studies, and queer theory. When we expand an MLA search of Middle English scholarship from 2000 to 2006 to include terms relating to sexuality and queer theory as well as gender and feminism, the results are even more numerous, amounting to 285 entries, or an average of 40 articles a year. 5 The size and diversity of the field is such that it is no longer accurate to speak of feminism alone. Rather, we must speak about a broader field of gender studies. As different as the various areas subsumed under this title might be, they are bound not only by their common interest in gender, but by the contradictory condition of being popular areas of inquiry that are persistently marginalized by the field's elites. The purpose of this article is similarly divided. I wish first to do justice to gender studies' vigor and its exciting intellectual future by highlighting initiatives that I believe promise to yield fascinating scholarship in the coming years....

Chaucer's gender‐oriented philosophy in The Canterbury Tales

“…94–95). In line with Crocker's suggestion that “Prudence's feminine agency is primarily directed toward making itself invisible by providing Melibee with an idealized masculine identity” (Sidhu, 2009, p. 870), the woman successfully functions as a source of wisdom and inspiration for several authoritative male figures. Therefore, it is reasonable to view her as a model that proves women's ability to participate “in the realm of politics as advisors and instructors” (Warren, 2016, p. 104).…”

“…Virginia pays her life to protect her virginity and her father's honor and reputation against the animalistic savagery of Appius and Claudius. The girl's virtuous behavior is “disruptive to late fourteenth century conventions of masculinity because she has so perfected a passive stance that she renders regulation and discipline (an essential part of late fourteenth‐century performances of manhood) superfluous” (Sidhu, 2009, pp. 870–871).…”

“…Also, Beverly Kennedy (1997) confirms that the image and tale of “the Wife of Bath” are “informed by clerical asceticism, misogyny and misogamy” (p. 23); conversely, Aranye Fradenburg (2002) introduces Chaucer as “a chivalrous rescuer of the reputations of women” (p. 196). This pro‐woman perspective gets developed by several critics who argue that “London writers of this period [including Chaucer] produce a new kind of ‘life‐writing’ (defined as writing on or around the self) that meditates on the masculine status of London bureaucrats – a group not always aligned with iconic images of masculinity” (Sidhu, 2009, p. 871). Likewise, Samantha Katz Seal views The Tales “as the creation of a Chaucer who has lost his belief in masculine reproduction in the course of Richard II's difficult reign, and no longer trusts his own ability to, in effect, outrun history” (Waters, 2020, p. 450).…”