Chaucer and Dissimilarity : Literary Comparisons in Chaucer and Other Late-Medieval Writing
- Author / Editor
- McGavin, John J.
Chaucer and Dissimilarity : Literary Comparisons in Chaucer and Other Late-Medieval Writing
- Published
- Madison and Teaneck, N.J. :
- London : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ;
- Associated University Presses, 2000.
- Physical Description
- 240 pp.
- Description
- A study of Chaucer's simultaneous employment of, and challenge to, comparative language and thinking. Chapter 1 explores dissimilarity and its "taxonomic force" in academic and religious traditions, while chapter 2 focuses on this subject in HF. Chapter 3 looks at the uses of similes in Chaucer and other medieval authors, arguing that Chaucer creates a "dialectical play of simile and context."
- The following two chapters focus on TC and the contexts and persuasive capabilities of comparisons in it. Chapter 6 deals with Chaucer's strategies for preventing readers from categorizing his fictions easily or comfortably. The book argues, finally, that the "most characteristic features of language as Chaucer uses it in poetic fiction . . . are similaic not tropic"; importantly, though, Chaucer sees the "creative and subversive effect of dissimilarity." McGavin gives recurrent attention to KnT, WBP, and ManT.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Troilus and Criseyde.
- House of Fame.
- Manciple and His Tale.
- Knight and His Tale.
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.