How Source Study Works: The Sergeant in The Clerk's Tale

Author / Editor
Farrell, Thomas J.

Title
How Source Study Works: The Sergeant in The Clerk's Tale

Published
Medieval Perspectives 18 (2011 for 2003): 113-31.

Description
Analyzes varying treatments of the "sergeant" character in Chaucer, the Anonymous French, Petrarch, and Boccaccio by considering the character's rhetorical effect in each. Rather than imitating a character either cruel (as in the French) or not-cruel (in Petrarch), Chaucer focuses on Grisilde's perception of the sergeant's behavior.

Chaucer Subjects
Clerk and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations