Date/Time
Date(s) - 5 Oct 2016
5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Columbia University Faculty House
Category(ies) No Categories
Stephanie Trigg (Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English, University of Melbourne) will present “Cloudy Thoughts: Facial Expression and Emotion in Chaucer’s Poetry.”
Abstract from Professor Trigg: This paper explores the idea of the moving and changing face in Chaucer’s works. How do Middle English writers tackle the representational problem of capturing the emotional face in movement? I will start with the “mevynge” of Criseyde as Chaucer describes it in her first public appearance at the temple in Book I of Troilus and Criseyde, and explore some of the social and cultural meanings of faces and bodies that move to change expression in the later middle ages. I will also consider the fickle, changing face of Fortune — especially visual images of the goddess with her face half in shadow — before returning to explore a cluster of associated images in Chaucer’s work. His relatively straightforward translation of Fortune’s “cloudy” face in Boece can be contrasted with the Host’s puzzlement at the Monk’s use of a similar image in The Canterbury Tales, and with the more “natural” image of Criseyde’s “cloudy thought” in Book II of the Troilus. These examples show Chaucer attempting to dramatise changes in feeling and facial expression without necessarily naming specific emotions such as shame, joy or anger.
Please note: We invite you to join us for dinner at Faculty House after the presentation. The University Seminars Office requires the rapporteur to collect payment for dinner ($30 per person; checks only, made payable to Columbia University). If you would like to attend dinner, we ask that you RSVP to the rapporteur ([email protected]) by Monday, September 26.
For more information on the seminar, please see http://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/affect-studies/