The Motif of Exorcism in the Summoner's Tale
- Author / Editor
- Wentersdorf, Karl P.
The Motif of Exorcism in the Summoner's Tale
- Published
- Studies in Short Fiction 17 (1980): 249-54.
- Description
- Scatological jests, such as dividing Thomas' "yifte," are derived from classical sources and adapted to Christian theology. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts frequently show defecation or breaking of wind to drive away the devil. The squire's grotesque solution to the "departynge" of the gift hints at avarice among mendicants and parodies the Pentecostal distribution of the Holy Spirit, which they believed themselves heir to.
- Probably derived from icongraphic depictions of the twelve winds, the motif was not objectionable to aristocratic audiences, for whom, indeed, it was designed.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Summoner and his Tale.