Hysteria, Perversion, and Paranoia in “The Canterbury Tales”: “Wild” Analysis and the Symptomatic Storyteller

Becky Renee McLaughlin

Published by Medieval Institute Publications 2020

Hysteria, Perversion, and Paranoia in “The Canterbury Tales”

“Wild” Analysis and the Symptomatic Storyteller

Becky Renee McLaughlin

Volume 25 in the series Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514104

Overview
Contents

About this book

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Beginning with the spectacle of hysteria, moving through the perversions of fetishism, masochism, and sadism, and ending with paranoia and psychosis, this book explores the ways that conflicts with the Oedipal law erupt on the body and in language in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for Chaucer’s tales are rife with issues of mastery and control that emerge as conflicts not only between authority and experience but also between power and knowledge, word and flesh, rule books and reason, man and woman, same and other – conflicts that erupt in a macabre sprawl of broken bones, dismembered bodies, cut throats, and decapitations. Like the macabre sprawl of conflict in the Canterbury Tales, this book brings together a number of conflicting modes of thinking and writing through the surprising and perhaps disconcerting use of “shadow” chapters that speak to or against the four “central” chapters, creating both dialogue and interruption.

Author / Editor information

Becky Renee McLaughlin, University of South Alabama, Mobile, USA.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction, or A Long Preamble to a Tale Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1: The Prick of the Prioress, or Hysteria and Its Humors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
Chapter 2: Portrait of the Hysteric as a Young Girl Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
Chapter 3: Masochist as Miscreant Minister: The Parable of the Pardoner’s Perverse Performance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
Chapter 4: Confessing Animals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Chapter 5: Before There Was Sade, There Was Chaucer: Sadistic Sensibility in the Tales of the Man of Law, the Clerk, and the Physician Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Chapter 6: Sadomasochism for (Neurotic) Dummies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Chapter 7: The Reeve’s Paranoid Eye, or The Dramatics of “Bleared” Sight Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Chapter 8: Farting and Its (Dis)contents, or Call Me Absolon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Chapter 9: Retractor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	268
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
Audience: Medievalists, scholars of English Literature, Psychology, Social Science and Culture Studies
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 295
Illustrations
- Tables: 1
Keywords: Geoffrey Chaucer; Canterbury Tales; Hysteria; Perversion; Paranoia; Psychosis

eBook

Published: July 20, 2020
ISBN: 9781501514104

Hardcover

Published: July 20, 2020
ISBN: 9781501518416

Paperback

Published: July 18, 2022
ISBN: 9781501527265