Narrative voice in Chaucer's Canterbury tales

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Over the last few decades, scholars have become increasingly dismissive of the dramatic model of interpretation as developed by Kittredge, Donaldson or Lumiansky and applied, to adopt the view of its opponents, 'ad nauseam' by a myriad of epigonal followers intent on proving the ubiquity of unreliable narration and Chaucerian irony in the „Canterbury Tales“. These readings were based, it is commonly argued, on post-Romantic conceptions of selfhood and narrative voice; the Middle Ages, however, were interested in rhetoric rather than narrators. "Narrative Voice in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'" promotes a third perspective, favouring an approach that acknowledges Chaucer's interest in figural narration on its own terms - indeed those of rhetoric, not of self-expression, but nonetheless of 'character'. Drawing on (post-)classical narratology, it helps to better understand not only medieval but also modern literature and offers innovative close readings of Chaucer's most 'dramatic' Tales.