Social Aesthetics and the Emergence of Civic Discourse from the Shipman's Tale to Melibee

Author / Editor
Taylor, Karla.

Title
Social Aesthetics and the Emergence of Civic Discourse from the Shipman's Tale to Melibee

Published
Chaucer Review 39 (2005): 298-322.

Description
Taylor reads ShT and Mel as an opposed pair. In ShT, puns indicate the failure of human attempts at community; in Mel, doublets encourage and iterate a linguistic and aesthetic community. Civil society comes into order in and through Mel, which expresses a "civic vocabulary for a community of English speakers."

Chaucer Subjects
Tale of Melibee.
Shipman and His Tale.