Gaudiness as technique

Abstract The aesthetic concept of gaudiness has its roots in techniques associated with a particular ornamental object in the late medieval period: the decorated marker beads, called gauds in English, used to organize and keep track of one’s recitation in medieval rosaries. As I discuss in this article, the formal purpose of the rosary gaud was to stand out in its exaggerated style, and in the process to function as a technique of control capable of shaping a legible aural practice. Being poetically suggestive, these features of the gaud were taken up in creative ways by practitioners of Middle English poetry, as attested in a series of poems by Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, and others. Gaudiness, however, makes meaning not only in its use of exaggerated style as a marking system; it also speaks to the aesthetic values and historicized tastes associated with that marking system. To investigate the current state of these embedded values, I turn to the work of contemporary poet Harryette Mullen, who explores the constraints of tradition as sites of disruption, critique, and at times, joyful exuberance.