Baiting the Summoner.

Author / Editor
Beichner, Paul E.

Title
Baiting the Summoner.

Published
Modern Language Quarterly 22 (1961): 367-76.

Description
Describes how the quarrel between the Friar and Summoner in WBP sets up the vituperative exchange of FrT and SumT, commenting on audience expectations and the motives and techniques of the two narrators, but focusing particularly on the cleverness of the Friar's "baiting" of the Summoner, leaving the latter with the dilemma of choosing between silence and retribution.

Chaucer Subjects
Friar and His Tale
Summoner and His Tale