Affective Reading: Chaucer, Women, and Romance

Saunders, Corinne

doi:10.5325/chaucerrev.51.1.0011

Affective Reading: Chaucer, Women, and Romance

Saunders, Corinne

Authors

Professor Corinne Saunders c.j.saunders@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Medieval thought emphasized the integration of thinking and feeling, an integration central to literary representations of mind, body, and emotion, and to the idea of reading as affective. Chaucer's romance writings are profoundly concerned with the power of affect on minds and bodies, particularly in relation to the psychology of love and loss. Such affect is treated extensively in the Book of the Duchess, the Knight's Tale, Troilus and Criseyde, and the Legend of Good Women, and is central to Chaucer's depiction of female subjects. This essay explores Chaucer's emphasis on the embodied nature of being in the world and his treatment of the relationship between thinking and feeling. It explores how ideas of mind, body, and affect resonate with women's literary culture and with the crucial roles of women as thinking and feeling subjects in Chaucer's works, and how women readers might have engaged with these representations.

Citation

Saunders, C. (2016). Affective Reading: Chaucer, Women, and Romance. The Chaucer Review, 51(1), 11-30. https://doi.org/10.5325/chaucerrev.51.1.0011

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Apr 30, 2015
Online Publication Date	Jan 31, 2016
Publication Date	Jan 1, 2016
Deposit Date	May 24, 2016
Publicly Available Date	May 25, 2016
Journal	Chaucer Review
Print ISSN	0009-2002
Electronic ISSN	1528-4204
Publisher	Penn State University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	51
Issue	1
Pages	11-30
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5325/chaucerrev.51.1.0011