Some Implications of Chaucer's Irony.

Description: Rejects Matthew Arnold's claim that Chaucer lacked "high seriousness," commenting on the "close interrelationship between the ironist and moralist" in the older poet's works, and suggesting that, though genial in his acceptance of human variety and folly, Chaucer "is not content merely to record the color and movement of his age"; he critiques it with "high comic irony" and notable tragic touches.