A Reading of the "Canterbury Tales."

Author / Editor
Huppé, Bernard F.

Title
A Reading of the "Canterbury Tales."

Published
Albany: State University of New York, 1964.

Physical Description
x, 245 pp.

Description
Reads CT as a thematic engagement with the need for humans to pursue spiritual pilgrimage, considering allegorical and symbolic imagery and focusing on charity, "caritas," and contempt for engagement with the world ("contemptus mundi"). Explores springtime, pilgrimage, and the narrative persona in GP and ParsP, counterpoises the spiritual idealism of KnT with the realism of MilT, and investigates the symbolic values of marriage and worldly activism in MLT, WBPT, ClT, MerT, FranT, and NPT. Treats "ecclesiastical corruption" as a worldly danger in SumT, FrT, and PardPT, and the need for stalwart faith and penance in ShT, PrT, MkT, SNT, and ParsPT. Includes recurrent attention to source material and exegetical commentary on biblical references and echoes.

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General
Style and Versification
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations