Mervelous Signals: Poetics, Sign Theory, and Politics in Chaucer's 'Troilus'

Description: The Middle Ages had developed a sophisticated semiotic theory. The legend of Troy permitted poets to explore language as the living expression of the social order. The principal sphere of action of TC is words, not swordblows or even kisses.; Pandarus sees everything as a disguise where everything is disclosed by its contrary. Diomedes, "of tonge large," "is less a soldier than a cunnilinguist." Troy is a city where people have forgotten to use signs properly: the figural violence within ignores the actuality of the true violence without. The conclusion is itself a linguistic act, confronting the Logos itself in the person of Christ.