The Philosophical Knights of "The Canterbury Tales."

Author / Editor
Moorman, Charles.

Title
The Philosophical Knights of "The Canterbury Tales."

Published
South Atlantic Quarterly 64 (1965): 87-99. Reprinted in A Knyght There Was: The Evolution of the Knight in Literature (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), pp. 76-95.

Description
Contrasts the conventionalized courtly characterization of the knight in BD with the relatively individualized courtly characterization of Troilus in TC, and goes on to assess the Knight and Theseus of KnT as a new kind of figure found only "at the very end of the chivalric tradition"—the "questioning, searching, philosophical knight" who recognizes profoundly the interplay of love and fortune. Also finds elements of this characterization in WBT and FranT.

Alternative Title
A Knyght There Was: The Evolution of the Knight in Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Book of the Duchess
Troilus and Criseyde
Knight and His Tale
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Franklin and His Tale