Language:
English
Year of publication:
1995
Titel der Quelle:
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library
Angaben zur Quelle:
77,3 (1995) 9-18
Keywords:
Chaucer, Geoffrey,
;
Antisemitism in literature
;
English literature History and criticism
;
Christianity and antisemitism History To 1500
Abstract:
A paper presented at the Second G.L. Brook symposium on "The Bible and Early English Literature, " University of Manchester, 1993. Attempts to determine whether Chaucer was employing dramatic irony in "The Prioress's Tale" or whether he was deliberately antisemitic, by analysis of the phrase "this newe Rachel" used to describe the clergeon's grief-stricken mother. Instead of the Jewish Rachel bewailing the fate of her children (Israel), as described in Matthew 2:16-18 which alludes to Jeremiah 30-31, the "Tale" has a Gentile mother bewailing the murder of her child at the hands of Jews who are summarily tortured to death. The point of the inverted plot parallelism would seem to be that injustice is a perennially human trait and not one limited to a particular racial or cultural tradition. But medieval Christian exegesis on Jeremiah consistently interpreted the prophecies as relating to "spiritual Israel" (i.e. Christianity). The anti-Judaism in medieval biblical commentaries was extensive, and it is likely that Chaucer, too, adopted this view. If, though, he was mocking contemporary antisemitism, it would have been one of the most daring attacks ever launched on a key citadel of patristic hermeneutics.
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