Queering Harry Bailly: Gendered Carnival, Social Ideologies, and Masculinity Under Duress in the Canterbury Tales

Abstract

H arry Bailly is a man’s man. He serves as “governing figure, as ruler, as king” of the Canterbury pilgrimage, 1 and he also represents a “figure of bourgeois masculinity,” 2 as well as a “recognizable type of the proud man.” 3 Walter Scheps asserts that “Harry is, even more than the monk, ‘a manly man,’ ” 4 and William Keen sees in Harry a sufficiency of “heroic qualities… to recommend his services to pilgrims who must pass where perils may lie.” 5 Indeed, Chaucer’s first description of the Host underscores his vibrant masculinity: A semely man OURE HOOSTE was withalle For to been a marchal in an halle. A large man he was with eyen stepe— A fairer burgeys was ther noon in Chepe— Boold of his speche, and wys, and wel ytaught, And of manhod hym lakkede right naught. (1.751–56) 6 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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