Next, the Host calls forth the Squire and asks him, if it be his will, to tell a tale about love. In the “General Prologue,” we learn that the Squire is the son of the Knight. He is “a lovyere and a lusty bacheler” (80) with curly locks of hair….
Tag: art
The Scholar’s Desire for Power: A Reading of The Clerk’s Tale
The Clerk’s Tale is one of the most important stories among Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The Clerk speaks to us as the representative from the academy, specifically he is an academic from ‘Oxenford’ (Oxford). He represents the philosopher’s voice in Chaucer. We have already heard the numerous charges brought against intellectuals…
Jonathan Swift and the Idea of Satire
The term “satire” comes down to us from the Classical Greek word for “satyr drama.” The best example of a surviving satyr play is Euripides’s Cyclops, and though we have a limited perspective on these tetralogical comedies, we believe they originated from Dionysian drunken revelries, and that they once concluded…
Aristotelian Mimesis: The Conflict Between the Friar and the Summoner
In the “General Prologue,” Chaucer describes the Summoner as someone with a ‘fire-red face cherubim’s face’ that is pimpled and disfigured. He is a lecherous man whose hair is falling out, and the mere sight of him brings fear into the hearts of children. He is a drinker of strong…