The Movement of the "Canterbury Tales": Chaucer's Literary Pilgrimage
- Author / Editor
- Pichaske, David R.
The Movement of the "Canterbury Tales": Chaucer's Literary Pilgrimage
- Published
- Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1977.
- Physical Description
- vi 192 pp.
- Description
- A reading of the CT as "Chaucer's aesthetic and metaphysical pilgrimage" in which his religious orthodoxy eventually supersedes "alternatives and legitimate philosophical doubts." Follows the Ellesmere order of the tales (defending it on thematic grounds), and assesses each tale in turn, with sustained attention to the Host, the links between the tales, and Chaucer's intentions. Parts 1 and 2 explore the "dialectic" among various insufficient or unacceptable perspectives, parts 3-5 consider the spiritual "order for which marriage is a metaphor," parts 6 and 7 contemplate art and its limitations, and parts 8-10 dramatize in various ways that transformation is necessary for humans to achieve spiritual fulfillment.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Canterbury Tales--General