The Friar as Critic: Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages

Author / Editor
Allen, Judson Boyce.

Title
The Friar as Critic: Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages

Published
Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971.

Physical Description
xi, 176 pp.

Description
Describes modes of literary analysis and understanding characteristic of the late Middle Ages, derived from the work of "classicizing writers" such as Robert Holcot, John Lathbury, Thomas Ringstead, John Ridewell, John Bromyard, Thomas Waleys, and Nicholas Trevet. The section dedicated to "Applications" of such theory includes commentary in KnT and MilT as "literal" poetry, on NPT as ironic poetry, and on various ways that Chaucer generally "reveals a fundamentally ironic attitude toward spiritual sense poetry."

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism
Knight and His Tale
Miller and His Tale
Nun's Priest and His Tale