Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts, Meanings Edited by Sheila Delany
2004; Purdue University Press; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-5165
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval and Classical Philosophy
Resumoand is an outstanding collection that brings together important reprintings with exciting new work. fourteen essays present both richly historicized and theoretically sophisticated analyses of figure of Jew, recognized in so many of contributions as a critical absent in late medieval English imagination. As she outlines in her introduction, one of Delany's aims is recuperate a side of his [Chaucer's] work that has usually been veiled (p. viii), entering field of Studies through questions raised by study of Chaucer's work. This approach challenges readers to look beyond a narrow critical focus on infamous antisemitism of Chaucer's Tale. This type of inquiry is exemplified in Colin Richmond's provocative and impassioned and Medieval Anglo-Jewry, which urges readers to consider how Jewish history permeates European history, and how its absence from history of...England tells us at once a great deal about Englishhess (p. 214). Richmond reviews key moments in English history and writing of it, offering a revisionist look at ways in which inclusion of history challenges cherished assumptions. Delany's own contribution to volume takes such a path, investigating overlooked setting of The Prioress's in Asye, which according to Delany, likely includes...Central Asia...Turkey and Arab regions (p. 43). Delany's approach goes against grain of much interpretation of Tale, which often tends to remove it from history. Delany examines a broader geo-political frame, showing how tale's setting reveals a concern with Islam and demonstrating how representations of and Muslims are intermeshed in late-medieval English imagination. Delany makes convincing argument that would have been well aware of these political, economic, and military contexts, although she resists providing a definitive answer on Chaucer's own (ultimately unknowable) views. This critical connection between representations of and Muslims is also found in Christine Rose's essay, which analyzes visual as well as theological and literary materials to show how two evil mothers-in-law in Man of Law's evoke figure of Synagoga, thus representing as a menace inextricably linked to Islam. William Jordan provides a careful study of Pardoner's collection of unusual relics, among them a sheep bone from a Holy Jew. Jordan shows how such an item might have impressed uneducated through drawing on cachet of a Jewish pedigree that seems to hark back to patriarchs. This relic would not, however, have fooled more sophisticated, serving as yet another element through which Pardoner's vicious nature and damning hypocrisy is revealed. Jerome Mandel's essay unravels puzzling reference to Jews werke of Sir Thopas's hauberk in Tale of Sir Thopas. Mandel argues that handiwork of would be associated not with type of workmanship necessary to create effective weaponry, but instead with decorative finery, generating a contrast sure to make Sir Thopas seem even more ridiculous to a knowing audience. In last essay in Chaucer Texts section, Sylvia Tomasch draws upon both postcolonial theory and cyberspace studies to develop concept of Jew. Before their 1290 expulsion, of were subjects of internal colonization, living as a dominated group within country (pp. 75-6). Even after their exile, however, they retained a powerful virtual presence that grew from their previous historical presence. Drawing on a range of texts and contexts, Tomasch explores how this reveals integral connections between imaginary constructions and actual people (p. 78), presenting a theoretical tool for understanding nature and power of absent in English history and in constructions of what constitutes England and the English. …
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