The Degradation of Chaucer's 'Geffrey'

Author / Editor
Garbáty, Thomas J.

Title
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