Classical Antiquity in Chaucer's Chivalric Romances

Author / Editor
Spearing, A. C.

Title
Classical Antiquity in Chaucer's Chivalric Romances

Published
Susan J. Ridyard, ed. Chivalry, Knighthood, and War in the Middle Ages (Sewanee, Tenn.: University of the South, 1999), pp. 53-73.

Description
Chaucer uses classical, pagan setting as a "screen" on which to "project alternatives to medieval social reality." He capitalizes on the strangeness of presenting classical privacy in TC. In KnT, especially in the temple of Diana, Chaucer explores the role of women in a masculinist society. The fusion of classical and Celtic in FranT creates a "fantasia" that may have inspired Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

Alternative Title
Chivalry, Knighthood, and War in the Middle Ages.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.
Knight and His Tale.
Franklin and His Tale.
Troilus and Criseyde.