Earnest Games: Folkloric Patterns in the "Canterbury Tales"

Description: Examines Chaucer's use of contemporary oral material and traditions of play in CT, especially by the churls. In part 1, Lindahl examines the "shapes of play and society": community of players, role of the pilgrim, shape of performance, and substance of the game.; In part 2, he examines the "social base of angry speech in Chaucer's London," insult strategies, and the "license to lie" or churls' rhetoric. Part 3 takes up the "gentil folk." Lindahl discusses disputes based on occupational differences or rivalries--Host versus Cook, Host versus Pardoner, Wife of Bath versus Clerk and Friar--as well as the Knight's and the Host's skill in speech. Folk rhetoric blossoms in the lower classes in MilT, RvT, CYT, WBT, SumT, FrT, ClT, MerT, PardT, ManT, and CkT.