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Measuring the Prioress's Forehead: Beauty and Piety

並列摘要


When observing Madame Eglentyne's white beautiful forehead, the narrator exclaims: "It was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe" (GP 155). What does it mean by the term "a spanne brood"? Is it "too much" for a forehead? Does it imply intelligence or "boldness"? Is it a sign of beauty or "stupidity"? Is it apposite for a religious woman to expose her forehead in public? In what way should a nun wear her wimple? By discussing these questions, this essay will inspect the misreading and misunderstanding of the Prioress caused by the ambiguous concept of the term "span." This research proceeds in two aspects: 1) investigating the various definitions of the term "span" in the Middle Ages; 2) examining the portraits of courtly and religious ladies depicted in a number of medieval paintings and artworks. By analyzing and comparing the data, this essay intends to offer a more exact measuring of the Prioress's forehead and will also propose that Madame Eglentyne's broad forehead is simply a sign of beauty and that her beauty has little relevance to her piety.

並列關鍵字

span wimple piety romance heroine religious paintings

參考文獻


Benson, Larry D.(ed.)(2008).The Riverside Chaucer.Oxford:Oxford UP.
Bowden, Muriel(1956).A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.New York:Macmillan.
Brewer, Derek(1955).The Ideal of Feminine Beauty in Medieval Literature, Especially 'Harley Lyrics,' Chaucer, and Some Elizabethans.Modern Language Review.50(3),257-269.
Clark, Thomas Blake. “Forehead of Chaucer's Prioress.” Philological Quarterly 9 (1930): 312-4.
Cooper, Helen(1996).Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales.New York:Oxford UP.

被引用紀錄


Wei, C. Y. (2014). Automatic Correction of Grammatical Errors in English learner Writing [master's thesis, National Tsing Hua University]. Airiti Library. https://www.airitilibrary.com/Article/Detail?DocID=U0016-2912201413553064

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