Chaucer and 'Sir Thopas': Irony and Concupiscence

Author / Editor
Wood, Chauncey.

Title
Chaucer and 'Sir Thopas': Irony and Concupiscence

Published
Texas Studies in Literature and Language14 (1972): 389-403.

Description
Examines the characterization of Chaucer's pilgrim-narrator in CT, focusing on the scene in ThP where the Host requests a tale from this narrator and exploring the ironies of the Host's expectations, the readers' knowledge of earlier Chaucerian personae, echoes of Dante's "Purgatorio" and "Inferno," sexual imagery in the tale of Thopas, and the shift to the tale of Melibee. The Th-Mel sequence satirizes the Host's expectations and those of the reader.

Chaucer Subjects
Tale of Sir Thopas
Tale of Melibee
Canterbury Tales--General
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations