This book exposes the ways in which ostensibly normative sexualities depend upon queerness to shore up their claims of privilege. Through readings of such classic texts as The Canterbury Tales and Eger and Grime , Tison Pugh explains how sexual normativity can often be claimed only after queerness has been rejected.
"Adventurous, accessible, and fun, Pugh's study certainly qualifies as a must read for any medievalist interested in issues of sexuality and gender." - Speculum
"Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature is an excellent, groundbreaking book and a major contribution to the ongoing project of recuperating the queer in medieval literature. Pugh's primary concern is with constructions of heterosexual masculinity, and the ways in which such constructions are enabled by the intercession of the queer. This has always been one of the main projects of Queer Theory, and Pugh's book serves as a demonstration of the power of Queer Theory to address pre-modern representations, as well as being an important intervention in the study of medieval literature itself." - Robert Sturges, Professor of English, Arizona State University and author of Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory and Dialogue and Deviance
"Pugh s attention to questions of genre and narrative structure in the book is consistently engaging" - Studies in the Age of Chaucer
"Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature is an excellent, groundbreaking book and a major contribution to the ongoing project of recuperating the queer in medieval literature. Pugh's primary concern is with constructions of heterosexual masculinity, and the ways in which such constructions are enabled by the intercession of the queer. This has always been one of the main projects of Queer Theory, and Pugh's book serves as a demonstration of the power of Queer Theory to address pre-modern representations, as well as being an important intervention in the study of medieval literature itself." - Robert Sturges, Professor of English, Arizona State University and author of Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory and Dialogue and Deviance
"Pugh s attention to questions of genre and narrative structure in the book is consistently engaging" - Studies in the Age of Chaucer