Date of Award

8-2024

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

School

Humanities

Committee Chair

Dr. Leah Parker

Committee Chair School

Humanities

Committee Member 2

Dr. Jameela Lares

Committee Member 2 School

Humanities

Committee Member 3

Dr. Alexandra Valint

Committee Member 3 School

Humanities

Abstract

The Pardoner’s Tale, one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, is a fourteenth-century allegory against gluttony, told by a corrupt, gluttonous pardoner to the rest of the pilgrims on their way to St. Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. In the Pardoner’s initial description, the narrator compares the Pardoner to a hare, a goat, a gelding, and a mare to make conjectures concerning his gender identity. The comparison of the Pardoner to animals to suggest defining traits about his character invites closer attention to his tale’s use of animal imagery.

This thesis examines animal imagery and cultural signifiers related to the Black Death in The Pardoner’s Tale to illuminate the Pardoner’s anti-Judaic storytelling techniques, which support his argument about how Christians should behave. Building on prior scholarship establishing the anti-Judaism of The Pardoner’s Tale, I draw together additional threads of scholarship on medieval bestiary lore, blasphemy, poison, the Black Death, to further characterize the cultural prejudices against Jews present in The Pardoner’s Tale and its reflection of the intensity of religious prejudice entrenched in fourteenth-century English storytelling. As a result, I argue that The Pardoner’s Tale’s subtle anti-Judaic stereotypes, which align Jews with the bestial, reveal how commonplace anti-Judaic ideas were in Chaucer’s England.

Download

Available for download on Sunday, May 20, 2035

  Contact Author

Share

COinS