Chaucer and Cato.

Author / Editor
Hazelton, Richard.

Title
Chaucer and Cato.

Published
Speculum 35 (1960): 357-80.

Description
Explores the range and depth of Chaucer's familiarity with the "Liber Catonis," its commentaries and glosses, and the likelihood that he memorized portions as a schoolboy. Identifies verbal echoes of "Catoniana" in Chaucer's works; then focuses on his "parodic use of Cato" in NPT, MilT, RvT, MerT, and ManT, evincing the "poet's sophisticated and heterodox attitude towards an ethical authority that all literate men of his time held in high esteem."

Chaucer Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Chaucer's Life
Nun's Priest and His Tale
Miller and His Tale
Reeve and His Tale
Merchant and His Tale
Manciple and His Tale