The Legacy of Apollo: Antiquity, Authority, and Chaucerian Poetics

Description: Surveys the figure of Apollo in classical and medieval traditions, focusing on the figure in Chaucer's works as an embodiment of the poet's understandings of poetic authority. Chaucer "mythologized a new idea of authorship in English," escaping scholastic formulations of poetic authority and exploring the role of the poet as "'vates,' inspired vessel of truth," a "proto-humanist" outlook anchored in classical tradition. Chaucer's Apollo is more Ovidian than Virgilian, although Chaucer explores the latter version in TC. In Fragment 5 of CT (SqT and FranT), Apollo is a figure of poetic inspiration, conceived in a way that prompted Chaucer's descendants to regard him as such. In ManT, the depiction of Apollo implies that readers are responsible for shaping poetic authority.

Chaucer Subjects: Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations; Troilus and Criseyde; Squire and His Tale; Franklin and His Tale; Manciple and His Tale