Metaphor at Play

Understandind Chaucer's use of metaphora is to understand the way he looks at the world and how he redefines it. metaphor therefor is not simply an embellishing rhetorical device but the means that allows the poet to relate things formerly unrelated: it is relational and dialogical. As a dialogical principle metaphor allows the poet to understand and review his poetic traditionwhile providing new prospectives on the social and religious issues of his own time. Of the essays here collected, "Metaphor and Exemplum in The Nun's Priest's Tale" has benn previously published in "Assays, critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts" (Carnegie Mellon University Press 1966). "Chautecleer's Bad Latin" has been published by "Exemplaria A journal of theory in medieval ad renaissance studies" 1992.