"A berd! A berd!": Chaucer's Miller and the Poetics of the Pun.

Author / Editor
Bryan, Jennifer.

Title
"A berd! A berd!": Chaucer's Miller and the Poetics of the Pun.

Published
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 38 (2016): 1-37.

Description
Assesses "why puns matter so much" in MilT, both "speaker puns" and "recipient puns," exploring the yoked concerns of language and intention, and commenting on secular and religious punning in medieval linguistic, artistic, rhetorical, and lexical traditions. Traces features of punning in literary history and the critical history of pun-hunting in Chaucer, showing how MilT is a "medium of recipient poetics" in its deployment of popular forms and verbal dexterity, a poem about the "fantasies" of language and linguistic plenitude.

Chaucer Subjects
Miller and His Tale
Style and Versification
Language and Word Studies