Chaucer’s Man of Law and Clerk as Rhetoricians: Narrative and Dramatic Levels of Decorum.

Author / Editor
Wurtele, Douglas James.

Title
Chaucer’s Man of Law and Clerk as Rhetoricians: Narrative and Dramatic Levels of Decorum.

Published
Ph.D. McGill University, 1968. Fully accessible via https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/downloads/mg74qp76z.pdf (accessed April 24, 2026).

Physical Description
241 pp.

Description
Shows how MLT and ClT "prove Chaucer's functional use of rhetoric for purposes of decorum," considering the characterizations of the narrators', their uses of rhetoric, and their intentions. Considers source materials, comments on the Wife of Bath, and argues for Chaucer's "hitherto unrecognized achievement in decorum."

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification
Man of Law and His Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Wife of Bath and Her Tale