Rhetoric as Therapy: The Man in Black, Dorigen, and Chauntecleer

Author / Editor
Manning, Stephen.

Title
Rhetoric as Therapy: The Man in Black, Dorigen, and Chauntecleer

Published
Kentucky Philological Association Bulletin 5 (1978): 19-25.

Description
Verbal action in Chaucer may take the form of a series of verbal encounters, as in BD; or a long monologue, as Dorigen's is and Chauntecleer's may as well be. Chauntecleer talks himself out of fear of dreams; Dorigen talks herself out of suicide; the Man in Black realizes what White has meant to him; and the Dreamer learns that White is dead. Rhetoric, creating shifting psychic distances, enables therapy to take effect.

Chaucer Subjects
Book of the Duchess.
Franklin and His Tale.
Nun's Priest and His Tale.