Masculinities in Chaucer

MAUD BURNETT MCINERNEY is Laurie Ann Levin Professor of Comparative Literature at Haverford College

• `Mirth and Bourgeois Masculinity in Chaucer's Host'. - Mark Allen`Homosociality and Creative Masculinity in the 'Knight's Tale''. - Patricia Clare Ingham`Negotiating Masculinities: Erotic Triangles in the 'Miller's Tale''. - Martin Blum`Performing the Perverse: The Abuse of Masculine Power in the `Reeve's Tale''. - Daniel F Pigg`A Wife, a Batterer, a Rapist: Representations of `Masculinity' in the `Wife of Bath's Prologue' and `Tale'. - Elizabeth M. Biebel`Ambiguous Brotherhood in the `Friar's Tale' and `Summoner's Tale''. - Jean E Jost`Sight and Sexual Performance in the `Merchant's Tale''. - Carol A Everest`Male Movement and Female Fixity in the `Franklin's Tale' and `Il Filocolo''. - Andrea Rossi-Reder`Doing What Comes Naturally: The `Physician's Tale' and the Pardoner'. - Glenn Burger`Troilus's `Gentil' Manhood'. - Peter G Beidler`Diminishing Masculinity in Chaucer's `Tale of Sir Thopas''. - Jeffrey Jerome Cohen`The Five Wounds of Melibee's Daughter: Transforming Masculinities'. - Daniel Rubey`Reading Chaucer's `Manly Man': The Trouble with Masculinity in the `Monk's Prologue' and `Tale'. - Michael D. Sharp``Have ye no mannes herte?': Chauntecleer as Cock-Man in the `Nun's Priest's Tale'. - Paul R Thomas``Slydyng' Masculinity in the Four Portraits of Troilus'. - Stephanie Dietrich``Is this a mannes herte?': Unmanning Troilus through Ovidian Allusion'. - Maud Burnett McInerney`Troilus's `Gentil' Manhood'. - Derek S Brewer

`Masculinity' is variously defined, a category so rich that its careful definition must necessarily enrich our reading of Chaucer. If there is one concern that unites these essays, it is the wish to challenge orthodoxies: new perspectives on familiar passages abound.