Quest for Authority in Tale of Sir Topas

Berry, Craig A. "Borrowed Armor/Free Grace: The Quest for Authority in 'The Faerie Queene' and Chaucer's 'Tale of Sir Topas'". Studies in Philology 91.2. (1994)

This article talks about Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas and texplores the idea that Chaucer pilgrim himself told the story in order to allow Chaucer to close the gap between him and his audience. He is able to laugh, make fun of, and undermine himself, but Craig. A Berry claims that he does this so that the authority of the tales as a whole increases. He talks about how the poet becomes an "innocent bystander" of the stories and shifts the responsibility for the stories off of himself. This may also connect with the idea of censorship that we have been talking about from Cannon as well.

This was just a small summary of what he talks about, but the rest can be found in the link below.



http://ftp1.whitworth.edu:2087/stable/4174481?seq=20#page_scan_tab_contents