Philosophical Chaucer Love, Sex, and Agency in the Canterbury Tales [Paperback]

Mark Miller's innovative study argues that Chaucer's Canterbury Tales represent an extended mediation on agency, autonomy and practical reason.This study examines the relationship between Chaucer's philosophical interests and his representations of love, sexuality and gender. While most Chaucer critics interested in gender and sexuality have used psychoanalytic theory to read Chaucer's poetry, Mark Miller re-examines the links between sexuality and the philosophical analysis of agency in medieval texts such as the Canterbury Tales, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and the Romance of the Rose. Chaucer's philosophical sophistication provides the basis for a new account of the notions of sexual desire and romantic love emerging in the late Middle Ages.This study examines the relationship between Chaucer's philosophical interests and his representations of love, sexuality and gender. While most Chaucer critics interested in gender and sexuality have used psychoanalytic theory to read Chaucer's poetry, Mark Miller re-examines the links between sexuality and the philosophical analysis of agency in medieval texts such as the Canterbury Tales, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and the Romance of the Rose. Chaucer's philosophical sophistication provides the basis for a new account of the notions of sexual desire and romantic love emerging in the late Middle Ages.While most Chaucer critics interested in gender and sexuality have used psychoanalytic theory to analyze Chaucer's poetry, Mark Miller re-examines the links between sexuality and the philosophical analysis of agency in medieval texts such as the Canterbury Tales, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and the Romance of the Rose. Chaucer's philosophical sophistication provides the basis for a new interpretation of the emerging notions of sexual desire and romantic love in the late Middle Ages.Acknowledgements; Introduction: Chaucer and the problem of normativity; 1. Naturalism and its discontents in the MillãD