Medieval Anticipations of Dryden's Stylistic Revolution 'The Knight's Tale'

Author / Editor
Hatton, Thomas J.

Title
Medieval Anticipations of Dryden's Stylistic Revolution 'The Knight's Tale'

Published
Language and Style 7 (1974): 261-70.

Description
Generalizes that John Dryden's compositional technique (in which abstractions precede concrete details) has precedent in the medieval "rhetorical poetic." Then shows how the details of KnT are "the vehicle for the presentation of certain Boethian concepts of the nature of Fortune and Providence," and thereby evidence that Dryden's technique is part of a "time-honored tradition."

Chaucer Subjects
Knight and His Tale
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion
Style and Versification