Father Chaucer and the Apologists: Cecily Chaumpaigne and 700 Years of Rape Culture
By Sarah Baechle
The Pennsylvania State University Press
ISBN: 9780271099682
One of the most hotly debated issues in medieval literary studies in recent years concerns Cecily Chaumpaigne, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the contested meaning of the phrase de raptu meo. This book traces how scholars have interpreted the case since the nineteenth century and shows how those debates have shaped—and sometimes reshaped—the study of Chaucer’s writings.
Excerpt:
What habits of thought, this book inquires, have shaped and continue to govern rape survival, and how do they inform the ways we have understood Chaucer’s life and poetry? In exploring the answers to these questions, we can begin to locate the survivor-driven readings heretofore unspoken.
Who is this book for?
Subjects such as sexual violence in medieval literature can be unsettling for some readers, but scholars working on Chaucer and his writings will want to engage and consider the arguments presented in this book.
“Sarah Baechle does not attempt to relitigate the Chaumpaigne release, but tracks how, for a century and a half, literary scholars and historians attempted to explain away what Chaucer had done, when all that was known was his having been accused of raping a woman. This she does with aplomb.” ~ review by Eleanor Janega in Times Literary Supplement
The Author
Sarah Baechle is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi, where she specialises in Chaucer and late medieval poetry.
Father Chaucer and the Apologists: Cecily Chaumpaigne and 700 Years of Rape Culture
By Sarah Baechle
The Pennsylvania State University Press
ISBN: 9780271099682
One of the most hotly debated issues in medieval literary studies in recent years concerns Cecily Chaumpaigne, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the contested meaning of the phrase de raptu meo. This book traces how scholars have interpreted the case since the nineteenth century and shows how those debates have shaped—and sometimes reshaped—the study of Chaucer’s writings.
Excerpt:
What habits of thought, this book inquires, have shaped and continue to govern rape survival, and how do they inform the ways we have understood Chaucer’s life and poetry? In exploring the answers to these questions, we can begin to locate the survivor-driven readings heretofore unspoken.
Who is this book for?
Subjects such as sexual violence in medieval literature can be unsettling for some readers, but scholars working on Chaucer and his writings will want to engage and consider the arguments presented in this book.
To learn more about this debate, please see: New Archival Evidence Raises Questions About Geoffrey Chaucer’s Rape of Cecily Chaumpaigne
“Sarah Baechle does not attempt to relitigate the Chaumpaigne release, but tracks how, for a century and a half, literary scholars and historians attempted to explain away what Chaucer had done, when all that was known was his having been accused of raping a woman. This she does with aplomb.” ~ review by Eleanor Janega in Times Literary Supplement
The Author
Sarah Baechle is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi, where she specialises in Chaucer and late medieval poetry.
You can read her article “Speaking Survival: Chaucer Studies and the Discourses of Sexual Assault” in The Chaucer Review
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.
You can buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
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