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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 5 page report discusses two of the preeminent interpreters and critics of Geoffrey Chaucer, Durant Waite Robertson, Jr. and E. Talbot Donaldson and their attitudes regarding Chaucer’s works. Robertson saw Chaucer’s work as allegory reflecting Christian beliefs while Donaldson interpreted him as a comic writer with a remarkable eye for detail and skill in language. “The Miller’s Tale” is considered as an example that proves the “Donaldsonian” point of view. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_BWchaudr.rtf
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London was like during Chaucers lifetime. He seems to primarily focus on what could be labeled as the allegory presented regarding Chaucers medieval reality. For example, in Chaucers London, Robertson
explains on what streets Chaucer would have encountered the "mercers, pepperers, fishmongers, cheesemongers, bakers, poulterers, and cordwainers" (Robertson 23) and on which he would have found "chandlers, weavers, and drapers"
(Robertson 41). However, how that would be interpreted would be based on what such things symbolized and how they played into the message of the particular "tale" being told. In
fact, the authors of The Development of Chaucer Criticism (Blackwell Publishers 14) point out that in his Preface to Chaucer, Robertson explains that medieval literature, in general, should be thought
of as being like the Bible in that it presents the merits of virtue and charity compared to evils such as avarice and lust. Robertson believes that throughout all
of Chaucers stories, there is a presentation of a morality that wants to instruct a reader or a person hearing the story in what could be loosely defined as the
"medieval aesthetic." Robertsons interpretations are fundamentally based on reading the tales in terms of their moral meaning rather than any aspect of entertainment or that Chaucer was simply commenting on
the humorous characters and times which he experienced during his lifetime. In comparison, E. Talbot Donaldson was unwilling to so broadly generalize what medieval literature was all about. In
fact, he thought such an approach was intellectually damaging if not dangerous and explained in an apparently well-known essay referenced in The Development of Chaucer Criticism and titled "Designing a
Camel: Or, Generalizing the Middle Ages" that the results of such generalizing practices by modern literary scholars and historians is that: "...the image of the Middle Ages now currently looks
...