Chaucer and the Shape of Creation: The Aesthetic Possibilities of Inorganic Structure.
- Author / Editor
- Jordan, Robert M.
Chaucer and the Shape of Creation: The Aesthetic Possibilities of Inorganic Structure.
- Published
- Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.
- Physical Description
- xvi, 257 pp.; 3 b&w figs.
- Description
- Describes the "aesthetic implications" of the medieval world view, rooted in Plato's "Timaeus" and based on notions of quantity, ordered hierarchy, and analogy rather than "organic" unity. Developed by Boethius, Macrobius, and Augustine, this view and attendant principles of art and beauty found expression in Gothic cathedrals and works by Dante, Christian humanists, and Chaucer. Structured vertically like a cathedral, TC depends upon "rational gradation" that moves in leaps between "absolutely separated levels of illusion, reality, and suprareality." CT presents multiple forms, irregularities, and disruptions that are best understood in light of Gothic aesthetic principles, evident in the narrative frame (non-dramatic), MerT (multiple forms), KnT (hierarchy), MilT (juxtaposition), ClT (discontinuity), WBP (inconsistency), and ParsT ("additive collocation").
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism
Troilus and Criseyde
Canterbury Tales--General
Merchant and His Tale
Knight and His Tale
Miller and His Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Parson and His Tale