"many a lay and many a thing": Chaucer's Technical Terms.

Author / Editor
Nuttall, Jenni.

Title
"many a lay and many a thing": Chaucer's Technical Terms.

Published
In Thomas A. Prendergast and Jessica Rosenfeld, eds. Chaucer and the Subversion of Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 21-37.

Description
Proposes that Chaucer's commitment to "technical experiment" in fixed-form verse is marked by skepticism and ambivalence in comparison to classical and contemporary European models. Several of Chaucer's poems--BD, LGW, PF, and TC--reveal a concern with "techne" that is unprecedented in English rhymed verse, but this is destabilized by an eclecticism and hybridity that skews toward unclassifiable forms. For Chaucer, "technical precision" is often at odds with emotional authenticity.

Alternative Title
Chaucer and the Subversion of Form.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification
Book of the Duchess
Parliament of Fowls
Troilus and Criseyde
Legend of Good Women