Chaucer and the Just Society: Conceptions of Natural Law and the Nobility in the 'Parliament of Fowls', the 'Knight's Tale,' and the Portraits of the Miller and Reeve

Author / Editor
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.

Title
Chaucer and the Just Society: Conceptions of Natural Law and the Nobility in the 'Parliament of Fowls', the 'Knight's Tale,' and the Portraits of the Miller and Reeve

Published
DAI 31.10 (1971): 5357A.

Description
Reads PF in light of its sources as an allegory of aristocratic responsibility for maintaining natural law and a just society; KnT as an exploration of lawlessness set against the background of Status's "Thebaid," focusing on the tournament; and the GP descriptions of the Miller and Reeve as satiric "caricatures of erring nobility."

Chaucer Subjects
Parliament of Fowls
Knight and His Tale
Miller and His Tale
Reeve and His Tale