Educating Reader: Chaucer's Use of Proverbs in 'Troilus and Criseyde'

Author / Editor
Hall, Ann C.

Title
Educating Reader: Chaucer's Use of Proverbs in 'Troilus and Criseyde'

Published
Proverbium 3 (1986): 47-58.

Description
Chaucer uses "ingenu" irony (Muecke's term) in TC. Pandarus, the most prodigious user of proverbs, demonstrates the illusiveness and unreliability of proverbs. For all his proverbial wisdom, Pandarus, like the narrator, is inept in love. Proverbs provide a safety net to deflect blame from both, and to protect the characters from audience disapproval.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde.