'Disfigured is thy face': Chaucer's Pardoner and the Protean Shape-Shifter Fals-Semblant (A Response to Britton Harwood)

Author / Editor
Chance, Jane.

Title
'Disfigured is thy face': Chaucer's Pardoner and the Protean Shape-Shifter Fals-Semblant (A Response to Britton Harwood)

Published
Philological Quarterly 67 (1988): 423-37.

Description
Chaucer's Pardoner owes a debt to Jean de Meun's Fals-Semblant ("Roman de la Rose"), whose false-seeming depends on clothing. In PardT, clothing metaphors become symbols for the relationship between body and soul. The Pardoner's reliance on the outer body belies his apparent spirituality.
Responds to the essay by Britton J. Harwood entitled "Chaucer's Pardoner: The Dialectics of Inside and Outside."

Chaucer Subjects
Pardoner and His Tale.