Sidhu, Nicole Nolan. “‘To Late for to Crie’: Female Desire, Fabliau Politics, and Classical Legend in Chaucer's Reeve's Tale.” Exemplaria, vol. 21, no. 1, 2009, pp. 3–23. doi:10.1179/175330709x372021.
Sidhu proposes that Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale combines elements of the fabliau and the classical legend to critique medieval gender politics; specifically, how high-status men dominate the weak to prove their authority, and the paradoxical position of women’s desire in the late-fourteenth-century (Sidhu 3). Sidhu claims Malyne’s betrayal of her father is multifaceted. It represents the fusion of fabliau and classical legend, and symbolizes the complex relationship between female desire and male dominance (7). Sidhu then argues that medieval laws appointing family control over young women’s sexual choices exemplify patriarchal dominance, and influence Malyne’s goodbye to Aleyn (11). Next, she claims Chaucer writes the clerks’ struggle for power in Reeve’s Tale to parallel the martial attitude in the Knight’s Tale, exposing the destructive nature of the chivalric code of honor (13). Finally, she argues obscene comedy can change perspectives on power relations only if it utilizes a fusion of discourses (18).
-- Grace Kranz
