"Make a Mark That Shows": Orphean Song, Orphean Sexuality, and the Exile of Chaucer's Pardoner

Abstract

'Make a Mark That Shows': Orphean Song, Orphean Sexuality, and the Exile of Chaucer's Any consideration of the complexity of the identity of Chaucer's Pardoner must address his sexuality as it relates to his audience and art. To help to do this we can turn to the medieval- Ovidian poem, the Roman de la rose of Jean de Meun, a work that features its own version of a pardoner who discusses language, law, homosexuality, and death-Genius, the priest of Nature. Of central interest here is Genius's treatment of Orpheus, the sometime homosexual poet who has, as we shall see, deep ties to Chaucer's Pardoner. Genius's discourse on homosexual writing and his attack on Orpheus's unproductive sexual practice provide a useful vocabulary with which to approach the themes of art and sexuality in the Pardoner's self-revealing monologue.