
Contents
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Squeezed vulnerability Squeezed vulnerability
-
Superflat romance Superflat romance
-
Sticky, sugary, shitty Sticky, sugary, shitty
-
Whiteness in the hold Whiteness in the hold
-
Ugly survival Ugly survival
-
Notes Notes
-
-
-
-
-
-
Cite
Abstract
This chapter examines the deformational forces of white precarity. It reads Chaucer’s Sir Thopas through cuteness to shift critical attention from the tale’s generic classification to questions of aesthetic and affect. Thopas, possessing a bread-like white face, is cute and cuddly. The production of cute features through infantilisation and feminisation triggers tender caretaking and sadistic aggression; the cute object is paradoxically held gently and squeezed violently. Cutification is a response to the racialised precarity posed by the religious and racial Other, especially by the Jews in the Prioress’s Tale. Anti-Semitic violence manifests as aesthetic deformation: the white face is squeezed and stretched to the breaking point. Under the duress of the cute response, the Chaucerian narrator, Thopas and the text become deformed. The flattening of physical and textual bodies leads to the obliteration of verticality and depth. Drawing on the superflat movement in Japanese contemporary art, I argue that cuteness in Sir Thopas effects a compression of the text’s narrative layers and semiotic networks. Mirroring the horizontal, non-linear organisation of the poem’s layout in medieval manuscripts, desire moves sideways across Sir Thopas. The lateral mobility and the agglutinating property of cuteness allow it to adhere to and cutify objects in its vicinity; the catalogues of romance tropes in Sir Thopas thereby function as cute object clusters within a late medieval middling household. As much as the narrative itself is pressurised, Sir Thopas makes affective and aesthetic demands on its audience, thereby ‘squeezing’ the audience as they squirm in shameful discomfort.
Sign in
Personal account
- Sign in with email/username & password
- Get email alerts
- Save searches
- Purchase content
- Activate your purchase/trial code
- Add your ORCID iD
Purchase
Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.
Purchasing informationMonth: | Total Views: |
---|---|
October 2024 | 1 |
November 2024 | 1 |
Get help with access
Institutional access
Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:
IP based access
Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.
Sign in through your institution
Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.
If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.
Sign in with a library card
Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.
Society Members
Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:
Sign in through society site
Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:
If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.
Sign in using a personal account
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.
Personal account
A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.
Viewing your signed in accounts
Click the account icon in the top right to:
Signed in but can't access content
Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.
Institutional account management
For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.