Helen Storm Corsa

The Law of the Excluded Middle applies even to literature.

This particular Chaucer commentary doesn't seem to have gotten much attention, and I truly suspect that is why. Author Helen Storm Corsa seems to think there are only two ancient literary genres, comedy and (I assume) tragedy -- and, since Chaucer wasn't writing tragedy, he must have been writing comedy. So everything in the Canterbury Tales has to be made comedy, even when it is romance (The Knight's Tale, The Franklin's Tale), or tragedy (The Physician's Tale), or a pure and simple sermon (The Parson's Tale). And the Tales as a whole must also be a collective comedy, even though they aren't finished and we don't know what final plan Chaucer would have applied!

It's an idea that just doesn't work, and it sometimes forces Corsa into absurdist interpretations, e.g. of the character of the Knight.

If you can get by that, there is some good commentary here, and several statements well worth remembering. The analysis by tale-types, and the insight into groupings within the Canterbury Tales, is well worth reading. Frankly, I wish she'd spent more of her effort on the "early poems," exploring the themes of items like The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fowls, where her refusal to recognize multiple types of writing matter less. As it is, you have to be prepared to do a lot of sifting. Most of what you'll find in your pan is just sand. But when you find something shiny, it is likely to be genuine gold.… (meer)