Rhetoric of Hypocrisy: The Pardoner's Reproduction in His Critics

Description: Posits the centrality of the Pardoner (rather than the marginality assumed by many critics) to CT. The "confidence game" of his narration parallels Chaucer's own rhetorical approach and informs those of his critics. Chaucer illustrates the self-negating nature of such rhetoric; the institutions (ecclesiastical, literary, academic) that enable and helpfully obscure narrative hypocrisy will inevitably be destabilized by that narrative.