Chaucer, Lydgate, and the 'Myrie Tale'
- Author / Editor
- Ebin, Lois (A.)
Chaucer, Lydgate, and the 'Myrie Tale'
- Published
- Chaucer Review 13 (1979): 316-36.
- Description
- In CT Chaucer defines and redefines "myrie tale." Ultimately it is neither mere entertainment, nor pure instruction, not even sentence and solace. A truly "myrie tale" must be "fructuous," i.e., truly edifying. Only ParsT fits, for poetry is inherently ambiguous, unreliable, fruitless. Lydgate disagrees. In his "Canterbury Tale," "The Siege of Thebes," he gives poetry a political dimension and makes the tale a moral speculum that is beneficial practically as well as spiritually.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Canterbury Tales--General.
- Parson and His Tale.
- Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.