Writing on Skin in the Age of Chaucer

Published by De Gruyter 2018

Writing on Skin in the Age of Chaucer

Edited by: Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp

Volume 60 in the series Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110578133

Overview
Contents

About this book

Owing to its relatedness to parchment as the primary writing matter of the Middle Ages, human skin was not only a topic to write about in medieval texts, it was also conceived of as an inscribable surface, both in the material and in the figurative sense. This volume explores the textuality of human skin as discussed by Geoffrey Chaucer and other writers (medical, religious, philosophical, and literary) of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. It presents four main aspects of the complex relations between text, parchment, and human skin as they have been discussed in recent scholarship. These four aspects are, first, the (mostly figurative) resonances between parchment-making and transformations of human skin, second, parchment as a space of contact between animal and human spheres, third, human skin and parchment as sites where (gender) identities are negotiated, and fourth, the place of medieval skin studies within cultural studies and its relationship to the major concerns of cultural studies: the difficult demarcation of skin from body, the instability of any inscription, and the skin’s precarious state as an entity of its own.

Author / Editor information

Nicole Nyffenegger, University of Berne, Switzerland; Katrin Rupp, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Acknowledgements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	VII
Introduction: Writing on Skin in the Age of Chaucer Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Reading Diseased Skin
Doctrinal Dermatologies Sealy Gilles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
The “Scabbe of Synne:” Reading Leprous Skin in Late Medieval Culture Michael Leahy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Legible Leprosy: Skin Disease in the Testament of Cresseid, Chaucer’s Summoner, and Amis and Amiloun Sharon E. Rhodes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
Part II: Textual Skins
Chaucer’s Ethical Palimpsest: Dermal Reflexivity in the General Prologue Catherine S. Cox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
The Cook’s “Mormal:” Reading Disease, Doubt, and Deviance on the Body of Chaucer’s Cook Erin E. Sweany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Blushing, Paling, Turning Green: Hue and Its Metapoetic Function in Troilus and Criseyde Nicole Nyffenegger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Part III: Writing Dermal Identities
Like a Second Skin: Appropriation and (Mis)interpretation of Identities in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and William of Palerne Pax Gutierrez-Neal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Queer Skin in the “Wife of Bath’s Prologue” and Its Manuscript Glosses Roberta Magnani Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Reconstructing the Pardoner: Transgender Skin Operations in Fragment VI M.W. Bychowski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Afterword: Skin Matters Elizabeth Robertson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics (Literary and Culltural Studies), Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Front matter: 7
- Main content: 273
Keywords: Geoffrey Chaucer; human skin; parchment; textuality

eBook

Published: September 10, 2018
ISBN: 9783110578133

Hardcover

Published: September 10, 2018
ISBN: 9783110575729

Paperback

Published: July 6, 2020
ISBN: 9783110709612