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Chapter 24 - Sex and Lust

from Part III - Humans, the World and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2019

Ian Johnson
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
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Summary

Lust or luxuria, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, was a rich and resonant term in the medieval Christian world, evoking a whole range of appetites and desires while speaking to penitential and other ecclesiastical discourses on human sexuality. Chaucer was an avid and inventive theorist and narrator of lust in its many emotional, affective and incarnate permutations, treating the category of lust with great ingenuity though with a surprising inconsistency inherited in part from scholastic discourses on the sin and its ramifications in human life. In Chaucer’s representations of Criseyde, Troilus, the Wife of Bath, and the Parson, among many others, lust functions as both a simple human desire for some end as well as a direct pathway to sin.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Sex and Lust
  • Edited by Ian Johnson, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: Geoffrey Chaucer in Context
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139565141.025
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  • Sex and Lust
  • Edited by Ian Johnson, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: Geoffrey Chaucer in Context
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139565141.025
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Sex and Lust
  • Edited by Ian Johnson, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: Geoffrey Chaucer in Context
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139565141.025
Available formats
×