"But whan us liketh we kan take us oon": Vain Surfaces and Walking Corpses in Chaucer's "Friar's Tale."

Author / Editor
Gordon, Stephen.

Title
"But whan us liketh we kan take us oon": Vain Surfaces and Walking Corpses in Chaucer's "Friar's Tale."

Published
Supernatural Encounters: Demons and the Restless Dead in Medieval England c. 1050–1450 (New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 161-83.

Description
Surveys the "literary context" of FrT and shows that in his discussion of demons (1447–1522) Chaucer uses Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas, and "the broad cultural sediments of local revenant belief." Also suggests that the possibility that the demon in the tale has usurped a human corpse engages prevailing themes of appearance versus intention, "spiritual and material economics," and mercantilism.

Alternative Title
Supernatural Encounters: Demons and the Restless Dead in Medieval England c. 1050–1450

Chaucer Subjects
Friar and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations