Ethics and Exemplary Narrative in Chaucer and Gower

Description: Examines the ethics of exemplarity in "Confesso Amantis" and in CT, arguing that reading for the moral--deliberating ethically--is improvisatory and reflexive and aims at practice rather than theory. Exemplarity involves the reader in its moral rhetoric, inviting a taxonomic practice of considering similar cases and an act of reduction to make a decision.; Chapters 1 and 2 consider the intuitive recognition of a moral, the reader's extracting of meaning from exempla, the use of example in classical rhetoric, and the rise of homiletic compilations in the Middle Ages. Chapters 3 and 4 argue that Gower, like Chaucer, challenges univocal meaning by offering readers contrary exempla--the morals of which readers determine according to their personal circumstances and conscience.; Chapters 5-7 examine WBP, FrT, SumT, PardP, PardT, ClT, Mel, and ParsT, arguing that Chaucer critiques the misuse of exemplarity (but not the genre) and analyzing how readers derive morals from the tales and tales within tales, the teller, or a combination of these features.

Chaucer Subjects: Wife of Bath and Her Tale.; Friar and His Tale.; Summoner and His Tale.; Pardoner and His Tale.; Clerk and His Tale.; Tale of Melibee.; Parson and His Tale.