Chaucer's 'Parlement of Foules': The Debate Tradition and the Aesthetics of Irresolution
- Author / Editor
- Reed, Thomas L. [Jr.]
Chaucer's 'Parlement of Foules': The Debate Tradition and the Aesthetics of Irresolution
- Published
- Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 50 (1980): 215-22.
- Description
- The bird parliament accords with scholastic and literary forms of the debate, including the terminology which characterizes the tradition. Typical of the literary debate, PF ends without any clear decision on either side. The initial "demande d'amour" gives way to the opposition of courtly idealism and bourgeois pragmatism, and the validity of all earthly love is questioned by Scipio's dream. Thus Chaucer turns the debate to refreshingly ambivalent ends.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Parliament of Fowls.