The Dragon of Love: Chaucer's Jason and the Cycle of Consumption in the Legend of Good Women

In the Legend of Hypsipyle and Medea, Jason is portrayed as a predator whose compulsive need for sex with new women lays waste to all around him. Chaucer's sequence of imagery explores the continuums of lust and desire, of form and formlessness, providing insight on sexually predatory men, the currency of love, and the deep lack that spurs avarice. This reading of the legend highlights some recurrent motifsdragons, foxes, gold, and emptiness-and discusses what these interlinked signs tell us about Chaucer's philosophy, his aesthetic and moral plan for the Legend of Good Women, and his continuing fascination with predatory masculine sexual behavior and compulsive infidelity, which he reads as a kind of shapeshifting. This legend presents a pessimistic and cautionary vision of a recurring human behavior, a biological urge that becomes unstoppable when it is couched behind gentility, as it was in the first seducer, Jason.

Automated summary

In the Legend of Hypsipyle and Medea, Jason is depicted as a predator driven by compulsive sexual needs, causing destruction to those around him. Chaucer's imagery sequence explores the continua of desire and formlessness, shedding light on sexually predatory men, the value of love, and the underlying emptiness that fuels greed. This interpretation of the legend emphasizes recurring motifs such as dragons, foxes, gold, and emptiness, and analyzes their significance to Chaucer's philosophy, aesthetic and moral plan for the Legend of Good Women, and his ongoing fascination with the transformative nature of predatory masculine sexual behavior and compulsive infidelity. The legend presents a pessimistic and cautionary vision of a recurring human behavior, a biological impulse that becomes unstoppable when disguised by gentility, as seen in the first seducer, Jason.