The Pilgrim in the Poem: Dante, Langland and Chaucer

Published: J. Stephen Russell, ed. Allegoresis: The Craft of Allegory in Medieval Literature (New York and London: Garland, 1988, for 1987), pp. 109-32.

Description: Using CT, "Piers Plowman," and Dante's "Commedia," Holloway looks at traditions of pilgrims and pilgrimages in their figural connections, the role of play and playfulness as correctives for error, and the pilgrim as "pharmakoi," "scapegoat figures of error and folly, warning as well as guiding their readers"--the purpose of the poets' presence within the "Commedia" and CT.; Paradoxically, in the medieval Emmaus Pilgrim tradition, Christ, who according to the Gospels forbade pilgrim garb, assumes pilgrim disguise and tells fables ("dum fabularentur" (Vulgate)). In the common medieval understanding of this tradition, Chaucer in CT presents a "true sermon in the pilgrim disguise of lying fables," with confidence in his audience's reception and participaiton in the redemptive design.

Alternative Title: Allegoresis: The Craft of Allegory in Medieval Literature.