DIFFERENT YET SIMILAR: THE NARRATOR AND THE KNIGHT IN GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S BOOK OF THE DUCHESS Cover Image

DIFFERENT YET SIMILAR: THE NARRATOR AND THE KNIGHT IN GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S BOOK OF THE DUCHESS
DIFFERENT YET SIMILAR: THE NARRATOR AND THE KNIGHT IN GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S BOOK OF THE DUCHESS

Author(s): Katarzyna Pytel
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: BOOK OF THE DUCHESS; GEOFFREY CHAUCER; THE NARRATOR AND THE KNIGHT,

Summary/Abstract: To sum up, the narrator and the kight in black are similar in their being immature persons and amateurish poets. They both typify the empathic approach to love and poetry, which is characterised by quick, uncritical and overemotional response. This attitude is presented as idolatrous and closely connected with absence, malady and death. Propounded by the narrator, it is most prominent in the proem, where it influences the mode of his selfportrait and of the ancient tale. It makes its way, too, into the dream section of the poem, where it is embraced by the man in black. On the whole, the narrator’s and the knight’s underlying notions of love and poetry are shown as ultimately the same.

  • Issue Year: 2011
  • Issue No: 19
  • Page Range: 113-121
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English