Poetic Freedom and Poetic Truth: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe

Description: Poetic truth cannot be confined by rigidly orthodox theories of literary criticism. D. W. Robertson, Jr.'s reading of ClT, for example, as a moral fable of "the duties of the Christian soul as it is tested by its Spouse" effectively inhibits any further, creative interpretation of the tale by fossilizing it as a matter of merely historical interest.; However, a comparison of the poem with its source reveals that Chaucer repeatedly emphasizes the sufferings of Griselda against the ultimately meaningless trials imposed on her by Walter. The tale is instead a compelling study in freedom of thought and man's reaction to tyranny.

Chaucer Subjects: Clerk and His Tale.; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.