Fortuna and Natura: A Reading of Three Chaucer Narratives.
- Author / Editor
- Bartholomew, Barbara.
Fortuna and Natura: A Reading of Three Chaucer Narratives.
- Published
- The Hague: Mouton, 1966.
- Physical Description
- 112 pp.
- Description
- Studies the "dynamic relationship" between Fortuna and Natura in PhyT, ClT, and KnT, surveying in an Introduction (pp. 9-45) their presence elsewhere in Chaucer's works and his antecedents. In PhyT which "approaches allegory" the "destructive forces of Fortuna" are implied and "roundly defeated," while "Nature's love, though overt, is "not always sufficient for human need." Walter and Griselda in ClT "dramatize the differences between Fortuna's fickle tyranny and Natura's stable love," although Griselda transcends nature. Less schematic and more ambiguous than the other two Tales, KnT capitalizes on the opposition between nature and fortune to reinforce a Boethian outlook in "delicate" ways. The volume is concerned with source relations throughout.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Knight and His Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Physician and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations