'The Knight's Tale': Against Synthesis

Author / Editor
Brimer, Alan.

Title
'The Knight's Tale': Against Synthesis

Published
Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif Vir Literaturwetenskap 6 (1990): 333-56.

Description
This Bakhtinian discussion of KnT argues that the "flaws" perceived by earlier critics result from misguided efforts at finding homogeneity in the poem. As a product of a complex literary culture, KnT reflects the culture's "heteroglossia" and cannot be reduced to a single coherent reading. The poem's multiplicity reflects equivocal understandings in Chaucer's time of such crucial concepts as mercy, tyranny, and love.

Chaucer Subjects
Knight and His Tale.