University of Montana, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library
Abstract
This thesis examines how the authors, Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Chestre, manipulate the construct of late fourteenth-century normative masculinity by parodying the aristocratic ideology that hegemonically prescribed the proper performance of masculine normativity. Both authors structure their respective tales, The Tale of Sir Thopas and Sir Launfal, in the style of contemporary popular romances; the plot of the tales focusing on the male protagonists’ quest for sexual and social identity. Instead of perpetuating the masculine identity of the hegemony, their romances parody the genre by queering the characteristics of the protagonists and the expectations of their audience
