Ambiguous Signs an Authorial Deception in Fourteenth-Century Fictions

Author / Editor
Reiss, Edmund.

Title
Ambiguous Signs an Authorial Deception in Fourteenth-Century Fictions

Published
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 113-37.

Description
Dante, Boccaccio, Gower, Chaucer, and the Archpriest of Hita are aware that language is deceptive: signs are ambiguous and may be misunderstood, or they are deliberately deceptive. The author may serve as trickster and may demand reader "response and responsibility."

Alternative Title
Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.