Moral Chaucer and Kindly Gower
- Author / Editor
- Woolf, Rosemary.
Moral Chaucer and Kindly Gower
- Published
- Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, eds. J. R. R. Tolkien: Essays in Memoriam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), pp. 221-45. Reprinted in Rosemary Woolf, Art and Doctrine (London: Hambledon Press, 1986), pp. 197-218.
- Description
- The epithets "moral" and "kindly" have for centuries been applied, respectively, to Gower and Chaucer, with a deleterious effect upon critical evaluation of the two poets. The epithets can revealingly be reversed. Gower is seen as kindly in his treatment of sexual matters (notably rape and incest in tales from "Confessio Amantis," for instance; while Chaucer's morality, though never obtrusive, is to be found even in such "immoral" tales as MerT, FranT, and WBP.
- Alternative Title
- J. R. R. Tolkien: Essays in Memoriam.
- Art and Doctrine
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.
- Chaucer's Influence and later Allusion.