'Parlous Play': Diabolic Comedy in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'

Author / Editor
Hanning, Robert W.

Title
'Parlous Play': Diabolic Comedy in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'

Published
Jean E. Jost, ed. Chaucer's Humor: Critical Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 295-319.

Description
Hanning examines the allusions to demons and devils in CT and compares them with the devil figure in late-medieval English religious drama. In both contexts, the devil is a tricker of humans who is tricked by God; a "spirit of inversion" who seeks to distort the "salvific Truth-telling function of the Word of God."

Alternative Title
Chaucer's Humor: Critical Essays.

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General.