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The 'Artes Praedicandi' and Chaucer's Canterbury Preachers
Abstract
When T. S. Eliot writes a sermon for Thomas à Becket to preach on the eve of his martyrdom, he provides his hero with a most unmedieval pulpit style. Geoffrey Chaucer, in creating a fictional pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket, also writes sermons, and the knowledge of medieval pulpit technique which is irrelevant to Murder in the Cathedral is well-nigh indispensable to an understanding of the Canterbury Tales. The sermons preached by the Parson and the Pardoner, the characterization of Chaunticleer and of the friar in the Summoner's Tale, and the brilliant parody of sermon style which isthe Wife of Bath's Tale depend upon a tradition of rhetorical theory which today is virtually unknown and which must be recovered if we are to appreciate the full range of Chaucer's comic art.
Subject Area
Literature
Recommended Citation
MYERS, DORIS EVALINE THOMPSON, "The 'Artes Praedicandi' and Chaucer's Canterbury Preachers" (1967). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI6715832.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI6715832