Chaucer's narrators and audiences

Chaucer's narrator-persona has been a central theme in Chaucerian scholarship; the persona has traditionally been seen as a mask behind which the poet hides. Within this essay it is argued that the narrators of theBook of the DuchessandHouse of Fameare a type of social mask, and that by rhetorically employing and manipulating the social dynamic between himself and his real-world audience, Chaucer produces a narrator figure which will influence how his contemporary audience would perceive the poet outside the fictional world of the text.

Published online: 24 March 2005
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.134.18fos