Lydgate's Affective Turn
Masculinity and Melancholy in Bycorne and Chychevache
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8863192 |
|---|---|
| Authors | T Johnson (0000-0001-8376-8987, Central Statistics Office, corresponding author), Travis W Johnson |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 427-451 |
| Publication date | 2012-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | English Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-838X • E-ISSN: 1744-4217 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0013838x.2012.668311 |
| OpenAlex | W2005462433 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
This paper argues that John Lydgate's Bycorne and Chychevache marks an important shift in the literary uses of emotion by revising the discourse of melancholic suffering in order to help a merchant-class patron confront socio-economic anxieties. In his misogynist poem, Lydgate imagines a world where wives dominate their husbands and force them to fall victim to a man-eating monster. The poem thus focuses on a melancholic masculinity that is captive to grief and trapped in a feminized subject position. Bycorne and Chychevache 's masculine melancholy addresses the fifteenth-century merchant's concerns about household governance, business success, and the building of a lasting legacy. But, in a striking reversal, Lydgate reimagines melancholy as a sign of power and privilege, and departs radically from the traditional narrative of melancholy as he converts feelings of disempowerment into signs of masculine exceptionality. In so doing, Lydgate anticipates early modern writers' understanding of melancholic suffering as not only a mark of spiritual and intellectual greatness in men, but also an affect that a man might adopt by choice
Aesthetics · Art · Feeling · Grief · Literature · Masculinity · Monster · Narrative · Poetry · Political science · Power (physics · Privilege (computing · Psychoanalysis · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Early Modern Women Writers · Medieval Literature and History · Psychology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Gender Studies · History · Law · Social Psychology
The past as text
Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love
The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England
Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
The medieval household in Christian Europe, c.850–c.1550
The Gendering of Melancholia
Feeling Backward
Mother Knows Best
Parables for the Virtual
Getting Medieval
"Gender and Romance in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales
Touching Feeling
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |