Gretchen Mieszkowski

Gretchen Mieszkowski

Medieval Go-Betweens
and Chaucer's Pandarus
, 2006

This book offers a
compelling portrayal of
two contrasting figures
who bring couples
together for romantic
love or sex: elegant
aristocrats who serve
idealized consensual
lovers, and ancient
crones who capture
women for a price. Via
a sweeping tour of 45
medieval works from
three centuries--Latin
comedies, fabliaux,
romances, the Roman
de la rose, the Book of
Good Love, and many
others-Mieszkowski
reveals a previously
unsuspected
dimension of Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde.
An idealized
go-between in every
outward respect,
Pandarus nevertheless
acts the part of a
go-between for sexual
conquest, trapping the
woman for the man.
Through Pandarus's
simultaneous
identification with the
go-between tradition's
contradictory ideologies
of desire, Chaucer
suspends Troilus and
Criseyde's story
irreconcilably between
lust and idealized
romantic love.