Speculum Mortis: Reflections of Chivalry and Courtly Society in the Age of Chaucer

Author / Editor
Arthur, Karen Maria.

Title
Speculum Mortis: Reflections of Chivalry and Courtly Society in the Age of Chaucer

Published
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1996): 2671A.

Description
Warfare and plague made English people of the later fourteenth century unprecedentedly aware of death. The Black Prince and John of Gaunt's first father-in-law, despite their heroic image in chronicles, died of unromantic diseases.
Like "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," KnT and TC combine seemingly meaningless death with the courtly and chivalric, revealing Chaucer's philosophic probing.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Knight and His Tale.
Troilus and Criseyde.