Bad Chaucer

Tison Pugh is Pegasus Professor of English at the University of Central Florida. He is the author or editor of over two dozen books, including On the Queerness of Early English Drama: Sex in the Subjunctive and Chaucer’s (Anti-) Eroticisms and the Queer Middle Ages.

Introduction: On Chaucer’s Badness
1. The Catalog of Trees and Epic Digressions of the Knight’s Tale
2. The Broken Arm and Sympathetic Cuckold of the Miller’s Tale
3. The Stoic Dawn Song and Comic Rapes of the Reeve’s Tale
4. The Fornicating Wife and Incomplete Completion of the Cook’s Tale
5. The Bounteous Boat and Prosperity Theology of the Man of Law’s Tale
6. The Forgotten Maiden and Phallic Renaissance of the Wife of Bath’s Tale
7. The Damned Pan and Exemplary Inconsistencies of the Friar’s Tale
8. The Dead Children and Anti-Carnivalesque Humor of the Summoner’s Tale
9. The Wretched Smock and Gendered Theodicy of the Clerk’s Tale
10. The Apologetic Narrator and Fragmented Perspectives of the Merchant’s Tale
11. The Nurse of Digestion and Camp Pleasures of the Squire’s Tale
12. The Stony Lady and Lovely Contradictions of the Franklin’s Tale
13. The Executed Governess and Errant Themes of the Physician’s Tale
14. The Dead Man Walking and Pseudo Crux of the Pardoner’s Tale
15. The Groanworthy Puns and Semantic Enigmas of the Shipman’s Tale
16. The Forgiving Readers and Mitigated Antisemitism of the Prioress’s Tale
17. The Singsong Meter and Aural Agonies of the Tale of Sir Thopas
18. The Immoral Allegory and Boring Maxims of the Tale of Melibee
19. The Hundred Endless Threats and Tragic Genres of the Monk’s Tale
20. The Cock’s Words and Chaucerian Tripletalk of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale
21. The Invisible Nun and Chaste Orgasms of the Second Nun’s Tale
22. The Textbook Rhetoric and Pedantic Poetics of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale
23. The Empty Birdcage and Paradoxical Punishment of the Manciple’s Tale
24. The Meek Heretic and Narrativeless Narrative of the Parson’s Tale
Conclusion: The Better Badness of Chaucer’s Retraction