'Ut Pictura Poesis': A Critique of Robert Jordan's 'Chaucer and the Shape of Creation'

Author / Editor
Simpson, James.

Title
'Ut Pictura Poesis': A Critique of Robert Jordan's 'Chaucer and the Shape of Creation'

Published
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Interpretation: Medieval and Modern (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), pp. 167-87.

Description
Refashions the Neo-Platonic "Timaean" aesthetic proposed by Jordan (Cambridge, 1967), focusing on the painting imagery used by Alain de Lille in his discussion of the creative acts of God, Nature, and writers. Despite Jordan's claims for the importance of rhetorical surface, Alain thinks that visual and verbal forms somehow enact the truth and that artistic intentions can be discovered. These views may be fruitfully applied to Chaucer's works.

Alternative Title
Interpretation: Medieval and Modern.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.