Letter and Gloss in the Friar's and Summoner's Tales
- Author / Editor
- Carruthers, Mary (J.)
Letter and Gloss in the Friar's and Summoner's Tales
- Published
- Journal of Narrative Technique 2 (1972): 208-14.
- Description
- Argues that FrT and SumT "explore the question of true meaning in far-reaching ways." Concerned with "externals" only, the Friar's summoner ignores intention, while the Friar himself (a "false glossator" though described as worthy) "cannot properly understand his own tale." The Summoner is "no glossator at all," a non-exegete whose "wholesale literalness" is expressed in puns rather than spiritual meanings.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Friar and His Tale
- Summoner and His Tale