Chaucer's 'Treatise on the Astrolabe': A Handbook for the Medieval Child

Author / Editor
Jambeck, Thomas J., and Karen K. Jambeck

Title
Chaucer's 'Treatise on the Astrolabe': A Handbook for the Medieval Child

Published
Children's Literature 3 (1974): 177-22.

Description
Praises the stylistic appropriateness of Astr to its youthful audience, showing how Chaucer adapts the lexicon, syntax, and rhetoric of Massahalla to be more suitable to his ten-year-old son, Lewis. Chaucer relies on native rather than Latinate vocabulary, incorporates concrete details, streamlines syntax, and increases pedagogical effectiveness through various strategies of simplification, amplification, and repetition.

Contributor
Jambeck, Karen K.

Chaucer Subjects
Treatise on the Astrolabe
Style and Versification