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Manners, Norms and Transgressions in the History of English: Literary and linguistic approaches
Edited by Andreas H. Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 312] 2020
► pp. 51–74

Unrestrained acting and norms of behaviour

Excess and instruction in The Legend of Good Women

| Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

This paper analyses two stories of The Legend of Good Women, by Geoffrey Chaucer, as examples of the reception of Ovidian tradition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Europe. The main characters of these fictions embody desired virtues for women, but a closer scrutiny reveals that these supposedly exemplary characters transgress the limits of the morality of the period through actions and gestures that would not be acceptable for real women. These descriptions of ethically unrestrained bodily movement cannot be read as literal norms of conduct. Rather, these actions are used as a means to achieve the emotional experience. This paper examines how these actions are depicted and what their relation is to the overall meaning of the narrative.

Keywords: Geoffrey Chaucer, bodily movement, performance, virtue, conduct, Medieval literature, The Legend of Good Women
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Exempla and the idea of good women
  • 3.The representation of despicable actions
  • 4.The legend of Thisbe
  • 5.The legend of Lucretia
  • 6.Conclusions: Unrestrained gestures as norms of behaviour
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.312.03per
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