Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction: Exemplarity and Authority in the Middle Ages: 1. Chaucer's Parson; 2. Redefining the exemplum: narrative, ideology and subjectivity; 3. Auctoritas and potestas: a model of analysis for medieval culture; Part I. The Latin Tradition: 4. The sermon exemplum; 5. The public exemplum; Part II. The Chaucerian Tradition: 6. Exemplarity and the Chaucerian tradition; 7. Canterbury Tales (I): from preacher to prince; 8. Canterbury Tales (II): from preaching to poetry; 9. Bad examples: Gower's Confessio Amantis; 10. The Chaucerian tradition in the fifteenth century; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

A study of how Chaucer and his successors used the exemplum as a vehicle for establishing the moral authority of their emerging vernacular tradition.