Species, Phantasms, and Images : Vision and Medieval Psychology in The Canterbury Tales
- Author / Editor
- Collette, Carolyn. P.
Species, Phantasms, and Images : Vision and Medieval Psychology in The Canterbury Tales
- Published
- Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2001.
- Physical Description
- xiv, 208 pp.
- Description
- Medieval ideas of psychology and cognition underlie the concern with sight, imagination, and "fantasye" in select tales of Canterbury, wherein Chaucer demonstrates that the only certainty in human relations is uncertainty. The male characters of KnT are constrained by the limits of their imaginations. In WBPT and ClT, uncontrolled male will is linked directly to problems of perception; in MerT and FranT, male and female obsessions derive from mental images distorted by desire. Beautiful images influence human "desire, judgment, and greed" in PhyT and PardT, understandable in light of Lollard anxiety about images. SNT and CYT depict successful and unsuccessful attempts to comprehend the relationship between the physical and metaphysical. ParsT seeks to communicate without images, and Ret affirms the uncontrollable nature of human imagination.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Canterbury Tales--General.
- Knight and His Tale.
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
- Clerk and His Tale.
- Merchant and HIs Tale.
- Franklin and His Tale.
- Second Nun and Her Tale.
- Canon's Yeoman and His Tale.
- Pardoner and His Tale.
- Parson and His Tale.
- Physician and His Tale.
- Chaucer's Retraction.