Reimagining the Feminine Role in Fin Amor: Feminine Compassion as Agency in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Knight's Tale'

This paper argues for a revised reading of the feminine role in Fin Amor. Guided by an interest in the presentation of gender in The Canterbury Tales, I was specifically invested in the question of whether there is more to the woman's role in the Tales, than a misogynist objectification that it is often written off as. Grounding this interpretative question in the notion of Fin Amor or Courtly Love, I aim to offer a theoretical contribution, which revaluates the dynamic between masculine and feminine lovers, and a concrete contribution, which applies this theory specifically to The Knight's Tale, to glean a modern and progressive interpretation of the woman's role, and what it has to offer in a Boethian world, like the Knight's..