Queering Medieval Genres

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.

• Chaucer
• English literature
• expectation
• gender
• history
• history of literature
• identity
• ideology
• literary theory
• literature
• medieval literature
• Middle Ages
• poetry
• social science
• tragedy

"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

"Queering Medieval Genres offers an extraordinarily lucid introduction to queer theory, one that will be useful both to those new to this branch of cultural studies and to those in the know. The connections between queer theory and genre theory are compelling, and Tison Pugh s new readings of canonical medieval texts are insightful and provocative." - Laurie Finke, Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Kenyon College

Tison Pugh is Professor of English at the University of Central Florida.

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