Violence, Law, and Ciceronian Ethics in Chaucer's Tale of Melibee

Description: DeMarco clarifies the classical and medieval distinctions between "public" and "private" violence and explores efforts to justify each type of violence, showing that Prudence's advice to Melibee is "secular," "pragmatic," and ultimately Ciceronian. Relationships between Mel and its sources show that (like WBT, KnT, and Gower's "Confessio Amantis") Mel offers ethical advice attuned to late fourteenth-century concerns with honor, profit, social stability, and legal tradition.

Chaucer Subjects: Tale of Melibee; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations; Knight and His Tale; Wife of Bath and Her Tale