Closure in the Canterbury Tales

The Role of The Parson's Tale

Edited by David Raybin Edited by Linda Tarte Holley

Book cover: Closure in the Canterbury Tales

Extent: 290 pages

Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications

Subjects: Literary Studies, Medieval Studies

Series: Studies in Medieval Culture

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(July 2000)

ISBN: 9781580440127

6.14 x 9.21 inches

Price: $29.95

In stock

Hardback (Published)

(July 2000)

ISBN: 9781580440110

6.1 x 9.17 inches

Price: $29.95

Out of stock

For all its spiritual cheerfulness and obvious importance as a tale to conclude tales, The Parson’s Tale seems to have inspired sentence and solaas in remarkably few critics. . This rethinking of traditional scholarship on The Canterbury Tales will be of great interest to Chaucer scholars and students of medieval literature.


For all its spiritual cheerfulness and obvious importance as a tale to conclude tales, a last word from a notable maker of words, The Parson’s Tale seems to have inspired sentence and solaas in remarkably few critics. This volume rejects the tradition that assumes the tale to be of questionable literary value. The studies included span the range of Parson’s Tale criticism from the textual, to the philological, to the hermeneutical. What they share is the assumption that if one is to understand the role of The Parson’s Tale, one must begin by accepting the language and method by which Chaucer fashioned it. This rethinking of traditional scholarship on this crucial aspect of The Canterbury Tales will be of great interest to Chaucer scholars and students of medieval literature.

Acknowledgments Introductions
David Raybin and Linda Harte Holley The Parson's Tale in Current Literary Studies
Siegfried Wenzel Manye been the weyes: The Flower, Its Roots, and the Ending of the Canterbury Tales
David Raybin The Parson's Tale and Its Generic Affiliations
Richard Newhauser Prolegomenon to a Print History of the Parson's Tale: The Novelty and Legacy of Wynkyn de Worde's Text
Daniel J. Ransom The Words of the Parson's Vertuous Sentence
Peggy Knapp Chaucer's Parson and the Idiosyncracies of Fiction
Judith Ferster Dropping the Personae and Reforming the Self: The Parson's Tale and the End of the Canterbury Tales
Gregory Roper The goode wey: Ending and Not-Ending in the Parson's Tale
Charlotte Gross Epilogue: Closing the Eschatological Account
Linda Tarte Holley
Bibliography of Scholarship Treating the Parson's Tale
David Raybin Contributors Index, Acknowledgments
Introduction by David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley
The Parson's Tale in Current Literary Studies by Siegfried Wenzel
"Manye been the weyes": The Flower, Its Roots, and the Ending of The Canterbury Tales by David Raybin
The Parson's Tale and Its Generic Affiliations by Richard Newhauser
Prolegomenon to a Print History of the Parson's Tale: The Novelty and Legacy of Wynkyn de Worde's Text by Daniel J. Ransom
The Words of the Parson's "Vertuous Sentence" by Peggy Knapp
Chaucer's Parson and the "Idiosyncracies of Fiction" by Judith Ferster
Dropping the Personae and Reforming the Self: The Parson's Tale and the End of The Canterbury Tales by Gregory Roper
"The goode wey": Ending and Not-Ending in the Parson's Tale by Charlotte Gross
Epilogue: Closing the Eschatological Account by Linda Tarte Holley
Bibliography of Scholarship Treating the Parson's Tale by David Raybin
Contributors
Index

  • Edited by David Raybin
  • Edited by Linda Tarte Holley