The "Stalke" and the "Balke": Cherry-Picking the Ethics of Reproof in "The Canterbury Tales."

Author / Editor
Craun, Edwin.

Title
The "Stalke" and the "Balke": Cherry-Picking the Ethics of Reproof in "The Canterbury Tales."

Published
Amy N. Vines and Lee Templeton, eds. New Directions in Medieval Mystical and Devotional Literature: Essays in Honor of Denise N. Baker (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 2023), pp. 55-72.

Description
Shows that aspects of the late medieval "pastoral program" of obligating "all Christians to admonish their neighbors about their sins" underlies the Reeve's reproval of the Miller and the Canon's Yeoman's of the Canon. In these cases, distortions of proper admonishment, including deployment of "stalke"/"balke" imagery, indicate that the reprovers are guilty of "revengeful public correction."

Alternative Title
New Directions in Medieval Mystical and Devotional Literature

Chaucer Subjects
Reeve and His Tale
Canon's Yeoman and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Style and Versification