The Canon's Yeoman and the Cosmic Furnace: Language and Meaning in the "Canon's Yeoman's Tale."

Author / Editor
Grennen, Joseph E.

Title
The Canon's Yeoman and the Cosmic Furnace: Language and Meaning in the "Canon's Yeoman's Tale."

Published
Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 4 (1962): 225-40.

Description
Identifies alchemical puns and their thematic/metaphoric potential in CYPT, focusing on "multiplie," "fire," and the figure of the "cosmic furnace" in 8.1407-8. Provides conceptual and contextual backgrounds from alchemical commentaries and suggests that they underlie allegorical implications much as do biblical commentaries.

Chaucer Subjects
Canon's Yeoman and His Tale
Language and Word Studies
Style and Versification
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations