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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 1520: Remembering (and Forgetting) in Chaucerian Verse

Thursday 5 July 2018, 09.00-10.30

Moderator/Chair:Huriye Reis, Department of English Language & Literature, Hacettepe University, Turkey
Paper 1520-aThe Trauma of Remembrance and the Pleasure of Forgetting: Anachronism in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess
(Language: English)
Gillian Adler, Department of English, Saint Peter's University, New Jersey
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Mentalities
Paper 1520-bChaucer's Pardoner: Motivations behind the Pardoner's Self-Revelations in His Prologue and Tale
(Language: English)
Mary Jean Miller, Department of English, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine, Rhetoric, Sermons and Preaching
Abstract

Paper -a:
At the heart of Chaucer's Book of the Duchess is an elegiac scene in which the Black Knight laments the death of Lady White. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the Knight's lament and other parallel narratives of grief expose the costs of nostalgia: the attempts to revive an irretrievable past through dialogue and language only metastasise the wounds of trauma. By contrast, the experiences of loss and recovery that frame the lament reveal the productive pleasures of forgetting, via not only social connection, but also anachronistic encounters that pluralise the sense of time, counteracting traumatic stasis.

Paper -b:
In this paper I argue that Geoffrey Chaucer's Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales suffers from memory loss as a direct result of an advanced stage of syphilis known today as neurosyphilis. This memory loss can be linked to the Pardoner's mannerisms as well as his self-revelatory nature when telling his tale to fellow pilgrims. This theory focuses on the Pardoner's habits, language, and trade as well as surrounding medieval literature and 14th-century medical knowledge; additionally this theory examines how the Pardoner's character and actions align with Chaucer's overall condemnation of the corruption within the Church during the 1300s.