And of Great Reverence: Chaucer's Man of Law

Description: Explores the "interstitial pattern of errors about things literary" in MLPT that characterize the teller as a "not-quite scholar" and highlight a tension between his "rhetorical excess and religious exhibitionism" and his penchant for legalisms, especially clear when seen in light of source material. Like the Prioress, the Man of Law shows his self-righteousness in his characterizations and punishments of non-Christians; further, he is a "pharisaical legalist" inspired partially by "Wycliffite polemics."

Chaucer Subjects: Man of Law and His Tale; Language and Word Studies; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations; Prioress and Her Tale