"The Winter's Tale": Decorum, Distinction, and Shakespeare's Chaucer.

Author / Editor
Espie, Jeff.

Title
"The Winter's Tale": Decorum, Distinction, and Shakespeare's Chaucer.

Published
Comparative Drama 55 (2021): 283-306.

Description
Suggests that Shakespeare's title, "The Winter's Tale," adapts a possessive form associated with Chaucerian narratives—the x’s tale—” and identifies similarities between the play and ManT. Focuses on the works' attention to linguistic register--"linguistic distinctions between people of different types and stations"--and argues that Shakespeare asserts both "similarity to Chaucer" and "independence from him." Appends a coda on "lemman" and "ladies" in early printings of Chaucer.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion
Manciple and His Tale
Language and Word Studies
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations