Trading the 'Knotte' for Loose Ends: The 'Squire's Tale' and the Poetics of Chaucerian Fragments

Author / Editor
Kamowski, William.

Title
Trading the 'Knotte' for Loose Ends: The 'Squire's Tale' and the Poetics of Chaucerian Fragments

Published
Style 31 (1997): 391-412.

Description
An unfinished "Tale" that constantly calls attention to stories it is not telling, SqT epitomizes the poetics of Chaucer's fragments, including CT itself. Successful fragments prompt intensified reader response; they imply infinitude. Medieval cultural contexts (including manuscript production, open-ended genres such as the "demande," and continuations) suggest contemporary appreciation of the fragment.

Chaucer Subjects
Squire and His Tale.
Canterbury Tales--General.