Narrative Focus in "The Book of the Duchess."
- Author / Editor
- Stevens, Martin.
Narrative Focus in "The Book of the Duchess."
- Published
- Annuale Mediaevale 7 (1966): 16-32.
- Description
- Treats the narrator-dreamer of BD as the poem's "central character" and a device of unity and dramatic irony. The character does not "develop" psychologically, but his polite good nature—comically limited by his ignorance of courtly idiom—enables Chaucer to affirm faith in the "Christian doctrine of endurance" in the face of fortune. The Black Knight does not escape the "inefficacy" of courtly sentiment.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Book of the Duchess