Richard of Venosa’s De Paulino et Polla depicts an old man’s sexual infirmity. It’s relevant to Oswald the Reeve’s Prologue in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. … Read the post De Paulino et Polla: context for Chaucer’s Reeve’s Prologue
The 12th-century Latin comedy Pamphilus, Gliscerium et Birria thrusts the courtly lover Pamphilus into parody and Christian mud. … Read the post Pamphilus, Gliscerium et Birria shows courtly lover’s folly
The 13th-century Latin comedy De uxore cerdonis mixes conventional beauty rhetoric and earthly violent realism in depicting a workman’s wife. … Read the post De uxore cerdonis depicts beautiful & violent medieval woman
The medieval Latin comedy Baucis et Traso indicates you can’t turn a whore into a virgin. It anticipated the rap claim “can’t turn a ho into a housewife.” … Read the post Baucis et Traso: can’t make a whore into a virgin
In Plautus’s plays, Roman men worried about wives’ spending, but avoided marrying wealthy women for fear they would become domineering, barking wives. … Read the post domineering, barking wives not worth their wealth in Plautus’s plays