The Afterlife of the Civil Dead: Conquest in the Knight's Tale
- Author / Editor
- Fowler, Elizabeth.
The Afterlife of the Civil Dead: Conquest in the Knight's Tale
- Published
- Thomas C. Stillinger, ed. Critical Essays on Geoffrey Chaucer (New York: G. K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1998), pp. 59-81.
- Description
- In KnT, Chaucer questions force as a basis for government. Conquest "dissolves voluntary social bonds" and fails to produce the consent necessary to a good society. An agent of force, Theseus uses rhetoric to control others, and his final speech is "loose reasoning." Arcite's body is a locus in which the deleterious effects of conquest are evident.
- Alternative Title
- Critical Essays on Geoffrey Chaucer.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Knight and His Tale.