Potency and Power: Chaucer's Aristocrats and Their Linguistic Superiority

Author / Editor
Jost, Jean E.

Title
Potency and Power: Chaucer's Aristocrats and Their Linguistic Superiority

Published
Liam O. Purdon and Cindy L. Vitto, eds. The Rusted Hauberk: Feudal Ideals of Order and Their Decline (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), pp. 49-76.

Description
Chaucer's primary representatives of aristocracy, the Knight and the Squire, reveal differing assumptions about acting within their social stations. Both exhibit confidence through linguistic security, but the Knight's epic reality and narrative control contrast with the Squire's "rambling," fantastic diversions, which lack coherence and order.

Alternative Title
The Rusted Hauberk: Feudal Ideals of Order and Their Decline.

Chaucer Subjects
Knight and His Tale.
Squire and His Tale.