Chaucers Canterbury Tales - Biblical Reference in The Clerks Tale Es

scriptural Reference in The Clerks Tale In 1921, Vance Palmer, the famous Australian designer and poet, noted, in his essay titled On Boundaries, that it is the business of archetype to localise things, to find the boundaries thought, indeed, is a ceaseless process of definition (Palmer 134). As Palmer noted, humans, by their very nature, attempt to define all things. But, more than that, we attempt to redefine subjects and caprices that have already been defined so that we can better interpret what they mean, where we came from, and, perhaps most importantly of all, who we are. Writers, from the beginning of the written word through the present, have, almost in their entirety, strived to cast a new light on subjects that were previously thought to have been completely understood. George Orwells Animal Farm, Charles Dickens Bleak House, and William Shakespeares overmuch Ado About Nothing are only a a couple of(prenominal) examples of the thousands of books where authors ha ve strived to redefine the defined. Just like these authors, Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, succeeded in redefining an idea that, even into the present but most certainly in Chaucers era, was thought to be completely understood. More specifically, using dozens of biblical references in The Clerks Tale, Chaucer redefined the relationship between humanity and the Christian God and between cleaning lady and man. Much of the academic criticism of The Clerks Tale seems to have focused on the idea of Griselda representing either the Virgin Mary or Job, and Walter representing God. James Wimsatt, in his essay titled The Blessed Virgin and the Two Coronations of Griselda, perhaps express this type of criticism best when he wrote The C... ...ury Tales Nine Tales and the General Prologue. Ed. V.A. Kolve. sunrise(prenominal) York W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. 136-168. Condren, Edward. The Clerks Tale of Man Tempting God. Criticism 26.2 (1984) 99-114. Fichte, Joerg. The Clerks Tale An Obituary to Gentilesse. spick-and-span Views on Chaucer Essays in Generative Criticism. Ed. William Johnson. Denver Society for New linguistic process discipline, 1973. 9-16. Levy, Bernard. The Meanings of the Clerks Tale. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction. Ed. Leigh Arrathoon. Rochester, MI Solaris, 1986. 385-403. Palmer, Vance. The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations. CD-ROM. New York Columbia UP, 1998. The NIV Study Bible. Rev. New International Version. Ed. Kenneth Barker. Grand Rapids Zondervan, 1985. Wimsatt, James. The Blessed Virgin and the Two Coronations of Griselda. Mediaevalia 6.1 (1980) 187-207.