Originality, Controlling Purpose, and Craftsmanship in Chaucer's "Man of Law’s Tale."
- Author / Editor
- Block, Edward A.
Originality, Controlling Purpose, and Craftsmanship in Chaucer's "Man of Law’s Tale."
- Published
- PMLA 68, no. 3 (1953): 572–616.
- Description
- Analyzes differences between MLT and its source in Nicholas Trevet's "Cronicles," with some attention to Chaucer's use of Gower's version in "Confessio Amantis." Shows that Chaucer streamlines quotidian details, adds rhetorical flourishes, and "humanized" his characters to some extent, while maintaining the main plot line of his sources. His changes, in effect, "lift [the story] into the realms of romance, remote in time and space," with touches of a "saint's life."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Man of Law and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Style and Versification