Chaucer's Sense of Illusion: Roadside Drama Reconsidered.

Description: Challenges "dramatic" criticism of CT, arguing that "realistic illusion" is not sustained but rather "undermined" in ways that call attention to aesthetic concerns, limiting the kinds of psychological projections that some critics have imposed upon the pilgrims in supplying them with motivations. Advocates an approach that explores "composite" rather than "organic" characterization, drawing analogies with juxtaposition in Gothic art. Comments most extensively on the Canterbury narrator, Miller, Reeve, and Merchant.

Chaucer Subjects: Canterbury Tales--General
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
Miller and His Tale
Reeve and His Tale
Merchant and His Tale