The Degradation of Chaucer's 'Geffrey'
- Author / Editor
- Garbáty, Thomas J.
The Degradation of Chaucer's 'Geffrey'
- Published
- PMLA 89 (1974): 97-104.
- Description
- Articulates various "levels of perception" manipulated by Chaucer to create comic irony through his personae in BD, HF, PF, LGW, and CT. The "Chaucerian pose" is relatively constant in the early poems where the narrator is a "reasonable man" (but "no more than this") whose common sense sets a standard by which the audience is guided to higher perception. In CT Chaucer "takes himself down a peg" by declaring his ignorance, thereby intensifying comedy through increasing caricature. Such self "degradation" indicates the personality of the poet.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Canterbury Tales--General
- Book of the Duchess
- House of Fame
- Parliament of Fowls
- Legend of Good Women