Chaucer's Distinctive Digressions

Author / Editor
Smallwood, T. M.

Title
Chaucer's Distinctive Digressions

Published
Studies in Philology 82 (1985): 437-49.

Description
Chaucer's digressions distinguish the narrative structure of PardT, WBT, MerT, FranT, PhyT, and ManT from others of the period in a way not accounted for in rhetorical models of the period ("Confessio Amantis," "Decameron," "Ovide Moralise," "Gesta Romanorum," the Gawain poet, Geoffrey of Vinsauf).
Digressions may be used to characterize the tale's teller (PardT, WBT), to accommodate material otherwise unsuited to the fiction (PardT, MerT), or to present "sententiae" (PardT, WBT, FranT, ManT, PhyT).

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General.