Arboreal Politics in the 'Knight's Tale'

Description: Examines the grove in KnT in the context of hunting and forest laws; reveals how Chaucer alters Boccaccio's "Teseida" to turn the grove first into a politicized space of human discord and then into a space of destruction, evoking warfare among men and against the natural world. By presenting the grove as Theseus's space, Chaucer advocates a "custodial view of power" that finds models in positive interactions with nature, even as he suggests that humans are incapable of lasting harmony.

Chaucer Subjects: Knight and His Tale; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations