Chaucers Canterbury Tales - Biblical Reference in The Clerks Tale Es

Biblical Reference in The Clerks Tale In 1921, Vance Palmer, the famous Australian author and poet, noted, in his look for titled On Boundaries, that it is the business of supposition to define things, to find the boundaries thought, indeed, is a ceaseless process of definition (Palmer 134). As Palmer noted, humans, by their very nature, try out to define all things. But, more than that, we attempt to specify subjects and ideas that have already been defined so that we can better understand what they mean, where we came from, and, perhaps closely importantly of all, who we are. Writers, from the beginning of the written word through the usher, have, almost in their entirety, strived to cast a new light on subjects that were previously thought to have been all understood. George Orwells Animal Farm, Charles Dickens Bleak House, and William Shakespeares Much Ado active Nothing are only a few examples of the thousands of books where authors have strived to redefine the define d. Just like these authors, Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, succeeded in redefining an idea that, even into the present but most certainly in Chaucers era, was thought to be completely understood. More specifically, using dozens of biblical references in The Clerks Tale, Chaucer redefined the relationship in the midst of humanity and the Christian God and between woman and man. Much of the academician animadversion of The Clerks Tale seems to have focused on the idea of Griselda representing both the Virgin Mary or Job, and Walter representing God. James Wimsatt, in his essay titled The Blessed Virgin and the Two Coronations of Griselda, perhaps stated this type of criticism best when he wrote The C... ...ury Tales Nine Tales and the General Prologue. Ed. V.A. Kolve. New York W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. 136-168. Condren, Edward. The Clerks Tale of populace Tempting God. Criticism 26.2 (1984) 99-114. Fichte, Joerg. The Clerks Tale An Obituary to Gentilesse. New Views on Chaucer Essays in Generative Criticism. Ed. William Johnson. Denver Society for New Language Study, 1973. 9-16. Levy, Bernard. The Meanings of the Clerks Tale. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction. Ed. Leigh Arrathoon. Rochester, MI Solaris, 1986. 385-403. Palmer, Vance. The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations. CD-ROM. New York Columbia UP, 1998. The NIV Study Bible. Rev. New world-wide Version. Ed. Kenneth Barker. Grand Rapids Zondervan, 1985. Wimsatt, James. The Blessed Virgin and the Two Coronations of Griselda. Mediaevalia 6.1 (1980) 187-207.