The Preaching of the Pardoner
- Author / Editor
- Fletcher, Alan J.
The Preaching of the Pardoner
- Published
- Studies in the Age of Chaucer 11 (1989): 15-35.
- Description
- PardT is not organized according to modern sermon form; rather, it follows a homiletic genre exemplified by the sermons in John Mirk's "Festial," in "Jacob's Well," and in "Speculum sacerdotale," among others. Often "themeless," with an "associative rather than systematic" structure, the form is heavily illustrated with exempla. It would have appealed to "lewd peple"; Chaucer's audience would have found it suspect.
- Revised in Alan J. Fletcher, Preaching, Politics, and Poetry in Late-Medieval England (Dublin: Four Courts, 1998).