Girdles, Belts, and Cords: A Leitmotif in Chaucer's 'General Prologue'
- Author / Editor
- Besserman, Lawrence [L.]
Girdles, Belts, and Cords: A Leitmotif in Chaucer's 'General Prologue'
- Published
- Papers on Language and Literature 22 (1986): 322-25.
- Description
- Several of Chaucer's worldly pilgrims (the Yeoman, the Man of Law, the Franklin, and the guildsmen) wear girdles, belts, or cords as symbols of wealth and opulence. None of the religious figures, however, is portrayed with a girdle. Since ecclesiastical girdles "stood for a variety of spiritual and ethical values," their omission here may point to "the failure of these figures to embody" such values. Reprinted in Papers on Language and Literature 50 (2014): 241-44.
- Chaucer Subjects
- General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.