A cruel spoon in context: cutlery and conviviality in late medieval literature

Indebted to Derek Brewer's "honor-group" theory, this essay explores how ideas of community and individuality found expression through depictions of spoon use in late medieval English and French texts. Guillaume de Digulleville's Pelerinage de vie humaine employs a spoon to repre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Etudes anglaises 2013-07, Vol.66 (3), p.281
Main Author: Kamath, Stephanie A Viereck Gibbs
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allegory
Chaucer
Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400)
Digullevile, Guillaume de
French language
Historical text analysis
Language history
Literary translation
Material culture
Medieval literature
Middle English
Poetry
Poets
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Summary:Indebted to Derek Brewer's "honor-group" theory, this essay explores how ideas of community and individuality found expression through depictions of spoon use in late medieval English and French texts. Guillaume de Digulleville's Pelerinage de vie humaine employs a spoon to represent the dissolution of monastic communal ideals, an implement described as a cruel spoon of singularity in John Lydgate's fifteenth-century translation. Exploring Geoffrey Chaucer's spoon references uncovers a discourse on social unity and its challenges; it seems no coincidence that the Canterbury Tales pilgrims who mention desirable, costly spoons are the singular figures of the Pardoner and Alison of Bath. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0014-195X
1965-0159
DOI:10.3917/etan.663.0281