The Age of Saturn: Literature and History in the Canterbury Tales

Description: Examines CT within the social and political life of the later fourteenth century. Chaucer had an unusually assimilative, syncretic, and integrative imagination, but he lived at a time of disintegrating social and religious forms and values. He was not a poet who chose to "rise above" such circumstances; rather, he wrote words that articulate and analyze, sometimes in coded form, the specific problems he and his society faced.; His tendency was not to offer easy solutions but to provoke,air, and sustain debate, often by adopting the point of view of a Christian radical. Specific chapters discuss the Wife of Bath, the Franklin, the Pardoner, the Merchant, and the Knight.

Chaucer Subjects: Canterbury Tales--General.; Wife of Bath and Her Tale.; Franklin and His Tale.; Pardoner and His Tale.; Merchant and His Tale.; Knight and His Tale.; Chaucer's Life.