Morrison S. Excrement In The Late Middle Ages. Sacred Filth And Chaucer’s Fecopoetics

New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. — 288 p. — ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–8488–3; ISBN-10: 1–4039–8488–3.This interdisciplinary book integrates the historical practices regarding material excrement and its symbolic representation, with special focus on fecopoetics and Chaucer’s literary agenda. Filth in all its manifestations — material (including privies, dung on fields, and as alchemical ingredient), symbolic (sin, misogynist slander, and theological wrestling with the problem of filth in sacred contexts) and linguistic (a semantic range including dirt and dung) — helps us to see how excrement is vital to understanding the Middle Ages. Applying fecal theories to late medieval culture, Morrison concludes by proposing Waste Studies as a new field of ethical and moral criticism for literary scholars.The Medieval Body: Disciplining Material and Symbolic ExcrementThe Rhizomatic Body
Moral Filth and the Sinning Body: Hell, Purgatory, Resurrection
Gendered FilthChaucerian FecopoeticsUrban Excrement in The Canterbury Tales
Sacred Filth: Relics, Ritual, and Remembering in The Prioress's Tale
The Excremental Human God and Redemptive Filth: The Pardoner's Tale
The Rhizomatic Pilgrim Body and Alchemical Poetry
Chaucerian Fecology and Wasteways: The Nun's Priest's TaleLooking Behind, Looking AheadLooking Behind
Waste Studies: A Brief Introduction
Bottoms Up! A Manifesto for Waste Studies