Abstract
The incompatibility of love with marriage in the poetry of Chaucer is a platitude so widely accepted that it is worth pointing out that it is quite untrue. Chaucer nowhere celebrates illicit love, though it is sometimes material for a joke, or satire. The only exception seems to be Troilus and Criseyde, and it may be argued that this exception is more apparent than real.
First published in Modern Language Review, 49 (1954) 461–4.
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Notes
J. W H Atkins, English Literary Criticism: the Medieval Phase (Cambridge, 1943) also notes the teaching of the distinction.
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© 1982 Derek Brewer
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Brewer, D. (1982). Love and Marriage in Chaucer’s Poetry. In: Tradition and Innovation in Chaucer. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05303-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05303-2_2
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