The Clerk vs. the Wife of Bath: Nominalism, Carnival, and Chaucer's Last Laugh

Author / Editor
Grossi, Joseph L.,Jr.

Title
The Clerk vs. the Wife of Bath: Nominalism, Carnival, and Chaucer's Last Laugh

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: Edwin Mellen, 1995), pp. 147-78.

Description
Reads ClT as a realist's attack on nominalism, with Walter depicting an unfree diety, and Griselda, rampant fideism. Chaucer moderates the Clerk's realism at the end of the Tale and in the Envoy.

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

Chaucer Subjects
Clerk and His Tale.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.