Chaucer's Parson's Tale and the late-medieval tradition of religious meditation

Speculum 64 (3):600-619 (1989)
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Abstract

In the prologue to the Parson's Tale, the discourse that is to follow is twice referred to as a “meditacioun.” The Parson states that he will put “this meditacioun” under the correction of clerks , and at the end of the prologue Harry Bailly instructs the Parson: “Telleth … youre meditacioun” . Despite the oddly persistent uncertainty about what the Parson's tale is , few critics have attended to the fact that both Harry Bailly and the Parson call it a “meditacioun,” other than to remark that it seems a curious appellation. I will argue here that the characterization of the tale as a “meditacioun” is careful and deliberate, and I will be concerned to explore the extent to which the tale can be seen as belonging to the late-medieval tradition of meditatio, especially as it developed in Latin from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries

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