Abstract

유인철: 초서의 '캔터베리 이야기'에 나타난 여성의 권위, 종교, 그리고 세속 권력   Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Volume 24 No. 2 (2016)   27-51 
        [Yoo, Inchol: Women’s Authority, Religion, and Power in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales]

Since Geoffrey Chaucer is a man who is deeply concerned with women’s status in a society, women have been one of the main concerns of Chaucer scholarship. By analyzing three of The Canterbury Tales—The Second Nun’s Tale, The Man of Law’s Tale, and The Clerk’s Tale,—this study attempts to find the forms of women’s authority and elucidate how women’s authority is constructed, thus shedding new lights on the topic of women in Chaucer study. Based on the analysis of the lives of three women depicted in the three Tales, this study argues that they commonly posses “charismatic authority,” which is given to each of them when their extraordinary qualities are voluntarily recognized by religious authorities, God, or people. The three women are also given “positional authority,” which allows each of them to have a new position in the society. Moreover, the virtues of the three women enable them to have “spiritual authority” after miracles happen in the midst of their unbearable hardship. While the three women possess charismatic and positional authority when religion and/or secular power acknowledges their virtues, spiritual authority is given to them as a result of their confrontation with secular power.

Keywords

초서, '캔터베리 이야기', ｢두 번째 수녀 이야기｣, ｢변호사 이야기｣, ｢학자 이야기｣, 여성의 권위, 종교, 세속 권력
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Second Nun’s Tale, The Man of Law’s Tale, The Clerk’s Tale, Women’s Authority, Religion, Power