Rhyme/Reason, Chaucer/Pope, Icon/Symbol
- Author / Editor
- Wimsatt, James I.
Rhyme/Reason, Chaucer/Pope, Icon/Symbol
- Published
- Modern Language Quarterly 55 (1994): 17-46.
- Description
- Using the linguistic theories of Charles Pierce, Wimsatt proposes that "the function of rhyme in Chaucer's poetry ... is to help organize the sounds to create a sign independent of a particular verbal sense" (18). Sound in poetry is carried in two registers, one a symbolic meaning and the other a "phonetic icon." Although undertaken by William K. Wimsatt, comparison of Chaucer's and Pope's rhyming is invalid because "the standards that are alleged to hold for Pope's work do not fit Chaucer's" (34).
- Chaucer Subjects
- Style and Versification.