Of spicerie of leef, and bark, and roote”
Recombinative Materiality in the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12358241 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Davis (0000-0002-8629-3144, University of California, Irvine, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 109-115 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Exemplaria (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1041-2573 • E-ISSN: 1753-3074 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10412573.2023.2224154 |
| OpenAlex | W4386610879 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 4 |
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale offers a rich case study of the dynamic materiality of food and its relation to literary practice. A particularly complex version of what Jane Bennett describes as “edible matter,” spices challenge our assumptions about material passivity, both because of their well-documented allure and because of their charismatic but finally insubstantial quality as a foodstuff. Typically ground, sieved, and combined with other ingredients in such a way that their tangible material substance virtually disappeared, their presence was known only by the traces of flavor, aroma, and color that they imparted. Spices thus model a recombinative materiality that was attractive to Chaucer precisely because spice can do what rhetorical and literary language can do: it can color, it can add flavor, it can obscure, it can augment, it can make one thing appear to be another thing
Aesthetics · Art · Literature · MAGIC (telescope · Materiality (auditing · Prologue · Rhetorical question · Byzantine Studies and History · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |