On the edge: Chaucer and Gower’s queer glosses

Abstract

In this article Diane Watt and I focus on a number of manuscript glosses accompanying the tale of Constance in Chaucer's The Man of Law's Tale and in Gower's Tale of Constance in Confessio Amantis. By applying queer theory to the paratextual apparatus of these manuscripts, we shed new light on the anxieties about authority and authorship shared by Chaucer and Gower (and their circles of collaborators). We also reevaluate the role of error and manuscripts variants, and argue for the queer pleasure provided by misprision and misinterpretation. This helps us to move away from patriarchal constructs on canon formation and manuscript transmission