Chaucer's Chain of LoveThis book traces the thematic and structural implication for Chaucer's poetry of the chain of love between God and his creation, an image used by the Platonist philosophers of Chaucer's day, as well as by the church as a metaphor for God's providential love. As a structural principle, the chain of love is the intermediary between constituents of time, space, and words. |
Contents
13 | |
18 | |
Loves Progressions and Successions | 40 |
Frayed Bonds of Sight and Word The Legend of Good Women | 57 |
WordChains of Love The Parliament Troilus and the Knights Tale | 71 |
Economies of Word as Bonds of Love Dorigen and Grisilde | 92 |
Aping Gods Chain of Love The First Fragment | 107 |
Quests and Parodies of Quests for the Chain of Love | 120 |
Ends of the Chain Parson and Prologue | 138 |
Memory and Design | 151 |
Notes | 158 |
Abbreviations | 196 |
Bibliography | 197 |
Index | 211 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alceste amor Arcite argues Arveragus Aurelius body Boece Boethius Boethius's bond of love Cambridge Canon's Canterbury Canterbury Tales chain of love Chaucer's Chaucer's day Chaucer's poetry Chauntecleer ChauR Christ Christian cites Clerk cosmic courtly creation Criseyde Dante Dante's divine Dorigen dream eternal explains fictional figure Franklin's Tale gentilesse Geoffrey Chaucer God's grace Grisilde Grisilde's Harry heaven idea invisible Jill Mann John Jupiter Knight's tale language Legend London love's man's marriage meaning mediates Medieval Miller's narrative nature Nun's Priest's Tale Oxford Pandarus Pardoner's Parliament of Fowls Parson Philosophy pilgrimage pilgrims Platonic poem poet Poetics Princeton Prologue purgatory quest Saturn says sense sexual shal sight soul Speculum spiritual story Theseus Theseus's things Thopas Thopas's thynges Timaeus Troilus Troilus and Criseyde Troilus's University Press Venus Virgin virtue Walter Wife of Bath Wife's woman womb women words
Popular passages
Page 18 - See through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth! Above, how high progressive life may go ! Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! Vast chain of being! which from God began; Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee; From thee to nothing...
Page 108 - Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene, And theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene, On which ther was first write a crowned A, And after Amor vincit omnia.
Page 57 - A thousand tymes have I herd men telle That ther ys joy in hevene and peyne in helle, And I acorde wel that it ys so; But, natheles, yet wot I wel also...
Page 57 - That eyther hath in hevene or helle ybe, Ne may of hit noon other weyes witen, But as he hath herd seyd, or founde it writen ; For by assay ther may no man it preve.
Page 93 - Se ye nat, lord, how mankynde it destroyeth? An hundred thousand bodyes of mankynde Han rokkes slayn, al be they nat in mynde; Which mankynde is so fair part of thy werk That thou it madest lyk to thyn owene merk.
Page 83 - So wolde God, that auctour is of kynde, That with his bond Love of his vertu liste To cerclen hertes alle and faste bynde. That from his bond no wight the wey out wiste; And hertes colde, hem wolde I that he twiste To make hem love, and that hem liste ay rewe On hertes sore, and kepe hem that ben trewe!