Chaucer and the Energy of Creation : The Design and Organization of the Canterbury Tales

Description: Reads CT (in Ellesmere order) as organized by the universal principles of entropy (movement to chaos), cybernetics (movement to stability), and synergy (transition to a changed or transcendent state). These three principles also inform the structure of Dante's Commedia. The devolution of Fragment 1 of CT is rejuvenated in MLT; the Tales from WBPT through FranT (the "Marriage Group") suggest various prospects for social stability, especially the careful use of language.; The remaining Tales constitute the "second half" of the poem, which, through various envelope patterns, suggests the need for-and the means to transcend-human inclination to disorder and error. The key notion in the process of this transcendence is the integral relation of flesh and spirit. Includes a brief appendix about the Chaucer portrait at UCLA.

Chaucer Subjects: Canterbury Tales--General.; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.