Chaucer's Distinctive Digressions
- Author / Editor
- Smallwood, T. M.
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.