The Necessity of History: The Example of Chaucer's 'Clerk's Tale
- Author / Editor
- Patterson, Lee.
The Necessity of History: The Example of Chaucer's 'Clerk's Tale
- Published
- Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 187-210.
- Description
- Patterson reads ClT in light of negotiations over the marriage of Richard II and Isabelle of France in 1396 and of the texts surrounding those negotiations, especially those concerned with the ideology of sacral kingship. Chaucer knew of the marriage negotiations through John Pritwell, the royal sergeant-at-arms who obtained safe conduct for diplomats and who worked with Chaucer when Chaucer was Clerk of the King's Works. Chaucer may have used "L'estoire de Griseldis" as well as Petrarch and the French translation as a reaction to the muting of political and literary issues.
- Alternative Title
- Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Clerk and His Tale.
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.