Queering Medieval Genres [Hardcover]

Queering Medieval Genres proposes that, within the historical trajectory of many genres, certain agents are privileged while others are marginalized due to their understanding of heteronormative social codes. Examining the ways in which homosexuality disrupts generic and cultural expectations of heteronormativity, this book demonstrates that the introduction of the queer within medieval literature shatters the audience's expectations of textual pleasure and demands that they reconsider the effects of homosexuality on their constructions of sexual and spiritual identity. Scholars of medieval literature will appreciate the fresh insights that queer genre theory provides on critical texts of the period; additionally, Queering Medieval Genres outlines a hermeneutic device with which to analyze literature of other historical periods as well.Introduction: Queering Medieval Genres Queering the Lyrics: Personae, Same-Sex Desire, and Salvation in the Poetry of Marbod of Rennes, Baudri of Bourgueil, and Hildebert of Lavardin Chaucer's Queering Fabliaux Queering Tragedy: Queer Desires and Queering Genres in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde Queering Arthurian Romance: Genres, Godgames, and Sado-Masochism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Conclusion: Queering Genres, Medieval Ideology, and Today's Readers Works Cited

Tison Pugh's Queering Medieval Genres offers an exciting examination of how the discourses of same sex relations disrupt and sometimes even subvert constructions of medieval heteronormativity. Pugh follows in the footsteps of such distinguished critics as Carolyn Dinshaw, Allen Frantzen, and Karma Lochrie in arguing the necessity of engaging medieval texts with queer theory, the necessity of engaging the institution of medieval studies with queer theory. His book provides a fascinating and important queer revision of the way we read medieval culture. - Martin B. Shichtman, Eastern Michigan University

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