Emptying the Vessel: Chaucer's Humanistic Critique of Nominalism

Author / Editor
Crafton, John Micheal.

Title
Emptying the Vessel: Chaucer's Humanistic Critique of Nominalism

Published
Richard J. Utz, ed. Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm (Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.; Lampeter, Wales: Eswin Mellen, 1995), pp. 117-34.

Description
Chaucer's works reflect a pattern of concern with the realist-nominalist issues of language. Early on, Chaucer critiques realism, and, later on, nominalism, while TC and especially CT pose the two views in dialogic debate. Fragment 6 (Phyt and PardT) represents the opposed extremes and then undermines them, exemplifying how Chaucer struggled with his predecessors and anticipated the Renaissance.

Alternative Title
Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm.

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General.
Physician and His Tale.
Pardoner and His Tale.