Rymyng Craftily: Meaning in Chaucer's Poetry

Author / Editor
Knight, Stephen.

Title
Rymyng Craftily: Meaning in Chaucer's Poetry

Published
London: Angus and Robertson, 1973

Physical Description
xviii, 247 pp.

Description
A series of five case studies in cloxe reading that demonstrate Chaucer's skill with prosodic and rhetorical devices; includes an appendix that defines and exemplifies "figures of style" (pp. 236-42). Chapter 1 contrasts the stylistic virtuosity of PF with the "unsatisfactory" poetry of Anel. Chapter 2 assesses the stylistic differences between the narrator and various "minor characters" in TC; chapter 3, the stylistic variety of KnT; chapter 4, the "poetic subtlety" of FranT and the ways that it is more successfully integrated into CT than is ManT. Chapter 5 discloses how the stylistic "pyrotechnics" of NPT convey gentle mockery of rhetorical writing as a branch of learning.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification
Parliament of Fowls
Anelida and Arcite
Troilus and Criseyde
Knight and His Tale
Franklin and His Tale
Manciple and His Tale
Nun's Priest and His Tale