The Dehumanizing Metamorphoses of The Knight's Tale
- Author / Editor
- Helterman, Jeffrey.
The Dehumanizing Metamorphoses of The Knight's Tale
- Published
- ELH 38 (1971): 493-511.
- Description
- Identifies in KnT a "series of metamorphoses that expose the dehumanizing force of Venerian love," arguing that Chaucer converted Boccaccio's "random collection" of animal images into a "formal pattern" and obliquely affirmed the Boethian notion that worldly love is anti-transcendent. Similarly, the Knight's chivalric ideals are misdirected, subtly undercut by the rhetoric of "occupatio" throughout the tale.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Knight and His Tale
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
- Style and Versification