Povre Griselda and the All-Consuming Archewyves

Description: Denny-Brown assesses the vacillations between sartorial richesse and rudenesse in ClT, examining the gender and class implications of Griselda's dressing, undressing, and redressing and counterpointing Walter's attitudes toward clothing and material consumption with those of his people. The Clerk's own frugality disguises a "fascination" with "worldly, material aesthetics," and his Envoy engages his theme of dispence as well as it does the Wife of Bath. The essay also considers the reception of ClT in Lydgate's "A dyte of womenhis hornys" ("Horns Away").

Chaucer Subjects: Clerk and His Tale.; Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.