Geoffrey Chaucer's Hybrid Woman: The Prioress in The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer'ın Canterbury Hikayeleri Ortaçağ'ın üç sınıfında yeri tam olarak belli olmayan hacıları resmeder. Eski (soylular) ve yeni (ruhban) sınıfları arasındaki Bhabha'nın deyişiyle "alanlarda" yaşam sürdüğü için arada kalan Başrahibe bu hacılardan biridir. Ortaçağ'da manastır mensupları genellikle soylulardan oluşurdu. Soylular manastırlara çoğunlukla kendi tercihlerinden değil, ailelerinin istekleri doğrultusunda girerlerdi. Bu yüzden, bu asil erkek ve kadınların çoğu laik ve dünyevi hayatlarını arkalarında bırakıp, bütünüyle dünyaya kapalı bir hayat gerektiren manastır kuralları doğrultusunda yaşamak zorunda kalırlardı. Dolayısıyla, manastırın asil mensupları çoğunlukla manastır hayatına ayak uydurmakta zorluk çekerler ve Bhabha'nın "üçüncü alan" olarak tanımladığı eski ve yeni sınıflarının arasında yaşamak zorunda bırakılırlardı. Tam anlamıyla ne soylu nede ruhban sınıfına ait olmayan manastırın bu soylu mensupları iki sınıfında alanlarını kapsayan üçüncü bir alanda yaşayarak Ortaçağın melez bireylerine dönüştüler. Tarihteki emsallerine benzer bir şekilde, kendine ne soylular nede ruhban sınıfında kabul gören bir konum ya da kimlik bulamayan Chaucer'ın asil kökenli Başrahibeside bu iki sınıfın arasındaki alanlarda yaşamak zorunda kalır. Başka bir deyişle, Başrahibe eski ve yeni sınıflarının arasındaki alanlarda melez bir kimlik geliştirir. Bütün bu bilgiler ışığında, bu makale Chaucer'ın Canterbury Hikayeleri'ndeki Başrahibesini Ortaçağın soylu ve ruhban sınıfları arasında "üçüncü alanda" yaşayan melez bir kimlik olarak ele almaktadır

Geoffrey Chaucer'ın Melez Kadını: Canterbury Hikayelerindeki Başrahibe

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales presents pilgrims whose status in the medieval three estates is not clearly defined. The Prioress is one of those pilgrims who experiences in-betweenness as she lives in what Bhabha terms the "territories" (1994, p. 28) of her former and present estates, the nobility and the clergy respectively. In fact, the members of medieval monasteries were mostly of the noble origin. Generally, it was not the choice of the members of the nobility to enter monasteries; yet, it was the wish of their families. Thereby, most of the noble men and women had to leave their previously secular and worldly life behind and live in full compliance with the monastic rules which required an entirely ascetic life. Accordingly, in most cases, the noble members of monasteries had difficulty in adjusting to monastic life which put them in between the territories of their former and present estates, in what Bhabha terms "a third space" (1994, p. 28). As they neither completely belonged to the nobility nor to the clergy, those nobles of monasteries lived in a third space contesting the territories of both estates. Thus, they became medieval hybrids. Similar to her historical counterparts, Chaucer's Prioress of noble birth can find a fixed status or identity neither in the nobility nor in the clergy, and she has to live in between them. That is, the Prioress develops a hybrid identity at the interface between her former and present estates. Within this context, this paper aims to discuss Chaucer's Prioress in The Canterbury Tales as a medieval hybrid who occupies a medieval third space on the borders between the nobility and the clergy.

PDF

___

Bennett, Judith M. (2003). England: Women and Gender. In S.H. Rigby (Ed.), A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (pp. 87-106). Oxford: Blackwell.
Bhabha, Homi K. (1991). The Third Space: Interview with Homi K.Bhabha. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 207- 21). London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Bhabha, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Bisson, Lillian M. (1998). Chaucer and the Late Medieval World. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Curry, Walter Clyde. (1916). The Middle English Ideal of Personal Beauty as Found in the Metrical Romances, Chronicles, and Legends of the XII, XIV, and XV Centuries. Baltimore: J.H. Furst.
Daichman, Graciela S. (1986). Wayward Nuns in Medieval Literature. New York: Syracuse University Press.
Dyer, Christopher. (1994). Everyday Life in Medieval England. London: Hambledon Press.
Cooper, Helen. (1996). Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coulton, G. G. (1961). Medieval Panorama. London: Collins.
Coulton, G. G. (2004). Chaucer and His England. London: Kegan Paul.
Cranage, D. H.S. (2010). The Home of the Monk an Account of English Monastic life and Buildings in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Erol, Burçin. (1981). A Pageant of Well-Dressed People: A study of Chaucer's Costume Imagery in the Canterbury Tales (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). Hacettepe University, Ankara.
Farrell, Thomas J. (2007). The Prioress' Fair Forehead. The Chaucer Review, 42 (2), 211-221.
Forgeng, Jeffrey L., & Will McLean. (2009). Daily Life in Chaucer's England. (2nd ed.). Westport: Greenwood Press.
Grode, Kathleen M. (2010). Geoffrey Chaucer's Prioress and the Medieval Body-Soul Debate (Unpublished Master's Thesis). South Dakota State University, Brookings.
Hanning, R. W. (1977). From Eva and Ave to Eglentyne and Alisoun: Chaucer's Insight into the Roles Women Play. Signs, 2, 580-99.
Hans-Werner, Goetz. (1993). Life in the Middle Ages: From the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century. (Albert Wimmer, Trans.). Notre Dame and London: Notre Dame Press.
Hermann, J. P. (1996). A Monk Ther Was, A Fair for the Maistrie. In Laura C. and Robert T. Lambdin (Eds.), Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales (pp. 69-79). Westport: Praeger.
Hilpsich, Stephanus. (1958). Benedictinism through Changing Centuries. Collegeville: St. John's Abbey Press.
Hodges, Laura F. (2000). Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
Hodges, Laura F. (2005). Chaucer and Clothing: Clerical and Academic Costume in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. New York: D.S. Brewer.
Hopper, Sarah. (2006). Mothers, Mystics and MerryMakers: Medieval Women Pilgrims. Thrupp: Sutton Publishing.
Hourigan, Maureen. (1996). Ther was Also a Nonne, a Prioresse. In Laura C. and Robert T. Lambdin (Eds.), Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales (pp. 38-46). Westport: Praeger.
Kaminsky, Howard (2012). Estate, Nobility, and the Exhibition of Estate in the Later Middle Ages. Speculum, 68 (3), 684-709.
Keen, Maurice. (1990). English Society in the Later Middle Ages 1348-1500. London: Penguin.
Kerr, Julie. (2009). Life in the Medieval Cloister. London: Continuum.
Koslin, Desiree G. (1999). The Dress of Monastic and Religious Women as Seen in Art from the Early Middle Ages to the Reform (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). New York University, New York.
Lee, Chong-Kyung. (1997). To Pursue a Life of Perfection: Distinctive Forms of Female Monastic Life in the Early Middle Ages (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). University of Texas at Austin, Austin.
Lepine, David. (2003). England: Church and Clergy. In S.H. Rigby (Ed.), A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (pp. 359-80). Oxford: Blackwell.
Livingstone, A. (2006). Brother Monk: Monks and Their Family in the Chartrain, 1000-1200AD1. In David Blanks, Michael Frassetto and Amy Livingstone (Eds.), Medieval Monks and Their World: Ideas and Realities: Studies in Honor of Richard E. Sullivan (pp. 3-115). Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Lowes, John Livingston. (1965). The Prioress' Oath. Romantic Review, 5, 368-385.
Mann, Jill. (1973). Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mortimer, Ian. (2009). The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. New York: Touchstone.
Partridge, Eric. (2006). Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. London and New York: Routledge.
Phillips, Helen. (2000). An Introduction to The Canterbury Tales: Reading, Fiction, Context. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Power, Eileen. (1964). Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275-1535. New York: Biblo and Tannen.
Power, Eileen. (2000). Medieval People. Mineola and New York: Dover Publications.
Rossignol, R. (2006). Critical Companion to Chaucer: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File.
Rudd, Gillian. (2001). The Complete Critical Guide to Geoffrey Chaucer. London and New York: Routledge.
Savage, A., & Nicholas Watson(1991). Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works. New York: Paulist Press.
Saul, Nigel. (2011). Chivalry in Medieval England. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Servey, K. N. Corruption at the Top: A Cultural Analysis of Chaucer's Wayward, Apostate Prioress (Unpublished Master's Thesis). Eastern Michigan University,Ypsilanti.
Shahar, Shulamith. (1990). Childhood in the Middle Ages. London: Routledge.
Shahar, Shulamith. (2003). The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages. (Chaya Galai, Trans.). London and New York: Routledge.
Strayer, J, R., & Munro, D. C. (1959). The Middle Ages. 395-1500. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts.
J. Conor Gallagher. (Ed.) (2007). The Rule of Saint Benedict. North Carolina: Saint Benedict Press.
Thompson, Sally. (1984). Why English Nunneries Have No History: A Study of English Nunneries Founded after the Conquest. In John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (Eds.), Distant Echoes: Medieval Religious Women (pp. 131-49). Kalamazoo: Cisterian Publications.
Ward, Jennifer C. Ward. (1995).Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066-1500. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Werthamer, Cynthia C. (1993) .Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Illinois: World Library.
Winston-Allen, Anne. (2004). Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late MiddleAges. State College: Pennsylvania University Press.