Integrity of identity and features of Chaucer's creativity

The article is devoted to modern epistemological potential of term identity developed by E. Ericson when using this term in historical research. This term has no clear definition in the scientist's works, but in general it can be defined as ''subjective feeling of identity'' to oneself and the society. The author intends to show how this concept can help to expose features of a historical figure and a historical age properly. But Ericson did not define integrity of identity rather saying about its types like national, age-specific, gender, religious, positive, negative and mixed ones. But within I. Nikolaeva's interdisciplinary approach a researcher has a possibility for more accurate definition. Further, it can help to reconstruct features of G. Chaucer's historical and cultural discourse as a reflection of the integral nature of consciousness connected with gender discourse, commodity-money relations ideas, etc. One can clearly see the integrity of identity especially noticing parallelism of gender ideas and notions about commodity-money relations change. Traditional concepts about women change in the Canterbury Tales. There is no serious blame of women for their vices in this work. Actually, women seem to be equal to men. In one story a wife was unfaithful to her husband, but the poet did not condemn her because the husband also broke moral standards. The common conclusion proved every human being to be sinful. Moreover, women have the same intellectual abilities; one can find several stories where women win men by using intellect. On the other hand, marriage is taken as a successful (or unsuccessful) purchase. Wife of Bath did not only secularize the sphere of sex stating reproductive organs were created to use them. She compares marriage with a deal between a man and a woman each of them profits from. The style of these stories containing commodity-money vocabulary reveals transitivity of poet's integrity. It correlates with other works of this time such as A Good Short Debate between Winner and Waster where discussion about expenditure and accumulation is held. It is interesting to note that there is no blame for waste or hoarding that point out the increase of commodity-money relations and the transitional type of Chaucer's society. So, Chaucer is an example of transitivity consciousness which contains traditional notions and new ones. In other words, the poet's identity has integral nature.

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