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"As Olde Stories Tellen Us": Chivalry, Violence, and Geoffrey Chaucer's Critical Perspective in "The Knight's Tale"

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From: Fifteenth Century Studies
Date: 20070101
Author:Mitchell-Smith, Ilan

When Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) writes in the Poem "Truth" "Her is non hoom, her nis but wildernesse: / Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!" he is calling for readers to avoid the animalistic distractions and excesses of the secular realm, and by doing so, directs their attention and spiritual movement heavenward, toward that which is eternal. The Boethian theme of this poem is pervasive within Chaucer's writing, as seen in the varying admonitory reactions his narrators provide: the defiance against "This wrecched worldes transmutacioun" in poems such as "Fortune," "lak of ...

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