Early Chaucer
- Author / Editor
- Spearing, A. C.
Early Chaucer
- Published
- Chap. 4 in A. C. Spearing, ed. Readings in Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 83-106.
- Description
- In BD, Chaucer relies on Latin "artes poeticae" and French courtly poetry for sources and models. "Amplificatio" is prominent: "expolitio," "circumlocutio," "collatio," "apostrophatio," "prosopopeia," "digressio," "descriptio," and "oppositio." The beginning complaint in BD would be appropriate for Aurelius in FranT. The narrator is literal;it is only "in the context of the figurative that the literal possess its full rhetorical power."
- The first section of HF is related stylistically to English romances such as "Havelok," but Chaucer is more reticent: his art conceals "itself behind the appearance of artlessness," as the narrator relates the story by the pictorial record in the temple of Venus. The code of visual images is dominant. Chaucer follows "artes poeticae" in advancing to prominence the narrator who calls attention to textuality and intretextuality.
- Alternative Title
- Readings in Medieval Poetry.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Book of the Duchess.
- House of Fame.