Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique
- Author / Editor
- Nolan, Barbara.
Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique
- Published
- Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
- Physical Description
- xv, 391 pp.
- Description
- Nolan analyzes continental verse narratives from which Chaucer borrowed for KnT and TC--namely, the Roman de Troie, Roman de Thebes, Roman d'Eneas, and Boccaccio's Filostrato and Teseida. TC uses Ovidian fine amor as a "fulcrum," and history as a glass for examining love, but Chaucer adds that erotic love is mortal and subject to Fortune's whims.
- Based solely on an ancient--and pagan--world view, KnT excludes Christian spirituality. The Knight's stoicism and classical notion of justice clash with the episodic irrationality of the medieval romance, where adventures and marvels pose moral questions in a chaotic world.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.
- Troilus and Criseyde.
- Knight and His Tale.