Unrestrained acting and norms of behaviour
Excess and instruction in The Legend of Good
Women
This paper analyses two stories of The
Legend of Good Women, by Geoffrey Chaucer, as examples of the
reception of Ovidian tradition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in
Europe. The main characters of these fictions embody desired virtues for
women, but a closer scrutiny reveals that these supposedly exemplary
characters transgress the limits of the morality of the period through
actions and gestures that would not be acceptable for real women. These
descriptions of ethically unrestrained bodily movement cannot be read as
literal norms of conduct. Rather, these actions are used as a means to
achieve the emotional experience. This paper examines how these actions are
depicted and what their relation is to the overall meaning of the
narrative.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.
Exempla and the idea of good women
- 3.The representation of despicable actions
- 4.The legend of Thisbe
- 5.The legend of Lucretia
- 6.Conclusions: Unrestrained gestures as norms of behaviour
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Notes
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Sources
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References