Chaucer’s Corrective Form: The Tale of Melibee and the Poetics of Emendation.

Description: Explores the recursive demands of grammatical emendation ("emendatio") and penitential reform--the accumulative and ongoing need for correction of error that creates or prompts more need for correction--as the aesthetic that underlies Mel, and CT more generally. Inspired by such models as grammatical exercises and Aristotelian prologues, Prudence's correction of Melibee is not successful, fulfilling, or complete, but it indicates the value of revision, revisiting, and adjustment of genres and ideas in the Canterbury fiction.