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Desire, Violence, And The Passion In Fragment Vii Of "The Canterbury Tales": A Girardian Reading, Curtis Gruenler

Faculty Publications

Part of a special issue on René Girard. The tales of fragment 7 of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales collectively address the problem of human violence and the potential of literature to perpetuate or remedy this problem. The narrative that links the two middles tales of fragment 7 provides a critique of violence that goes beyond mere opposition to war. In this narrative, Chaucer alludes to Christ's crucifixion and death in order to speak as a witness to suffering. In the first three tales of fragment 7—The Shipman's Tale, The Prioress's Tale, and Sir Thopas,—Chaucer depicts the tendencies to mythologize violence in …