Author: Hannah Piercy, Department of English, Universität Bern (University of Bern) - Academia.edu

Contents:

	Acknowledgements (p. ix)
	List of Abbreviations (p. xi)
	Introduction (p. 1)
		Cultural Contexts (p. 8)
			Consent: Marriage Practices and Raptus Law (p. 8)
			Raptus, Coercion, and Rape Culture (p. 13)
			Sex, Sin, Gender, and Desire (p. 17)
		Literary Contexts (p. 21)
			Genre (p. 21)
			Literary Precedents: Latin and French Sources (p. 24)
		Reading Resistance: Subversive Possibilities (p. 30)
		Resistance to Love in Medieval English Romance (p. 33)
	1. ‘Ar ye a knyght and ar no lovear?’ Men Who Resist Love (p. 37)
		Reconsidering Guigemar: Asexuality and Generic Dissonance (p. 39)
		Chastity or Pride? Gendering Resistance to Love in Amadas et Ydoine (p. 47)
		Gender and Coercion in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseydey (p. 51)
		Un/Willingness to Love: Sir Degrevant’s Emotional Lacunae (p. 61)
		Queer Alternatives: Thomas Malory’s Dynadan (p. 66)
		Conclusion (p. 72)
	2. ‘But of love to lere’: The Proud Lady in Love (p. 75)
		Women’s Pride and Men’s Prowess: Directing Chivalric Masculinity in Guy of Warwick (p. 79)
		Enforcing Desire and Interrogating Masculinity: Ipomadon and Blanchardyn and Eglantine (p. 84)
		Chivalric Failures and the Censoring of the Proud Lady in Eger and Grime (p. 101)
		The Proud Lady beyond Redemption in Malory’s Tale of Pelleas and Ettarde (p. 108)
		Conclusion (p. 114)
	3. ‘Ne feolle hit þe of cunde / To spuse beo me bunde’: Resisting Mésalliance (p. 115)
		Modelling Consent and Coercion in King Horn and Amis and Amiloun (p. 119)
		The Politics of Coercion and Exemplarity in Havelok (p. 140)
		Interrogating Social Class in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale (p. 148)
		Conclusion (p. 152)
	4. ‘What wonder is it thogh she wepte’? Hierarchies of Desire, Race, and Empathy (p. 155)
		‘Y nold hir ȝiue a Sarazin’: Desire, History, and Fantasy in The King of Tars (p. 162)
		‘She knoweth nat his condicioun’: Geography, Culture, and Prejudice in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale (p. 170)
		‘Y haue leuyd on false lore – / For þy loue y wyll no more’: Faith, Status, and Isolation in Sir Bevis of Hampton (p. 176)
		‘Wyle I neuer take hire ner no woman’: Homosociality and Social Pressure in Sir Ferumbras and The Sowdone of Babylone (p. 180)
		Conclusion (p. 187)
	5. ‘What deyntee sholde a man han in his lyf / For to go love another mannes wyf’? Resisting Adultery, Resisting Rape Culture (p. 189)
		Exemplary Wives and Counter-Narratives: Syr Tryamowre, The Erle of Tolous, and The Franklin’s Tale (p. 193)
		Locating Desire and Power in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (p. 209)
		‘That I ded was ayenste my wylle’: Sexual Violence and the Vulnerability of Malory’s Launcelot (p. 215)
		Conclusion (p. 224)
	Conclusion: The Ends of Romance (p. 227)
	Bibliography (p. 233)
		Primary Sources (p. 233)
		Secondary Sources (p. 238)
	Index (p. 265)

Description: »This book explores such resistance as a widespread motif in the genre, tracing the subversive possibilities it presents, and through them uncovering how romance constitutes particular kinds of love as desirable, shaped by intersecting factors, including gender, status, race, religion, and morality. Drawing upon contemporary work on consent, the politics of desire, and asexuality, it examines how resistance is often transformed into acceptance, through consensual negotiation or coercive force: the romances discussed here demonstrate that a certain level of force, pressure, and persuasion is accepted as a means of forming relationships within the genre, but this reliance on coercion reveals the effort to which romances must go to uphold normative structures of desire. Considering a variety of works, from Marie de France's twelfth-century Guigemar to Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, Geoffrey Chaucer's Franklin's Tale to William Caxton's fifteenth-century prose romances, this book argues that romance teaches its readers what and whom to desire, as well as how to behave when negotiating their desires, and explores the wider implications for understanding consent, gender, and desire in medieval England. « (Source: D.S. Brewer)

Note: 2024 Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Book Prize

Reviews: Spencer, Logan. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 55 (2024): 295-298. - Full Text: Project MUSE (Restricted Access)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England / England in the Late Middle Ages | Feminism: Feminist terminology / Rape culture | Literature: English literature / Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Malory | Literature: Fiction about rape / Erl of Toulouse, The Franklin’s Tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Tryamour | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in England