The Man of Law vs. Chaucer: A Case in Poetics.
- Author / Editor
- David, Alfred.
The Man of Law vs. Chaucer: A Case in Poetics.
- Published
- PMLA 82 (1967): 217-25.
- Description
- Contrasts the moral seriousness of MLT with the comic mode of MLP and MLE, arguing that they combine to present the Man of Law as Chaucer's "ironic portrait" of pedantic, dogmatic, or moralistic readers and critics (perhaps John Gower) who would limit art to narrow didacticism, leaving little room for the entertainment value that he endorses. Includes discussion of the role of Innocent III's "De Miseria Conditionis Humane" in MLPT and compares MLP with ParsP.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Man of Law and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Parson and His Tale