The Prioress and the Critics.

Author / Editor
Ridley, Florence H.

Title
The Prioress and the Critics.

Published
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.

Physical Description
51 pp.

Description
Surveys critical approaches to PrT, distinguishing between "hard critics" of the Tale who read it as an indictment of the teller's anti-Semitism, and "historical" approaches that consider it in light of late-medieval attitudes and practices. Argues that Chaucer is "mildly satirical" of the Prioress's pretentiousness in the GP description and that PrT satirizes "simplicity, emotionalism, and frustrated femininity," but not "religious prejudice" against Jews, given that it was an accepted aspect of contemporaneous literature and society.

Chaucer Subjects
Prioress and Her Tale