Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:19:42.165Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Romance

from Part II - Books, Discourse and Traditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2019

By
Stephen H. A. Shepherd
Edited by
Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Get access

Summary

A productive way of approaching Chaucer’s sustained, innovative, often enigmatic engagement with romance can be to entertain the proposition that for him romance was as much a received literary form, predicated on its protagonists’ engagement with adventure and marvel, as it was a model for authorial adventurousness that invited him to compose new and counterintuitive literary marvels. In this, Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale shares something of the Gawain-poet’s grave subversion of and experimentation with existing romance form. However, Chaucer’s knowledge of the scholastic impossibilium (as articulated, for instance, through the Franklin and the Wife of Bath), points to a further experimental underpinning, such that we see in his romances the marvel of the marvel-made-empirical.

Keywords

romanceadventuremarvelchivalryimpossibiliumGavin DouglasGawain-poetfaerieWife of Bath
Type
Chapter
Information
Geoffrey Chaucer in Context , pp. 89 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Romance
  • Edited by Ian Johnson, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: Geoffrey Chaucer in Context
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139565141.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Romance
  • Edited by Ian Johnson, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: Geoffrey Chaucer in Context
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139565141.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Romance
  • Edited by Ian Johnson, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: Geoffrey Chaucer in Context
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139565141.012
Available formats
×