What Comes After Chaucer's But in The Faerie Queene
What Comes After Chaucer's But in The Faerie Queene
Talbot Donaldson's article examines how the illogical use of but in Chaucer's Prologue indicates the pressure of a mind. The article is further evidence of the presence of a dramatic person in The General Prologue, although Donaldson resolutely avoids making claims explicitly about it. The recurrence of logical and illogical but, whether conjunctive or propositional, is an intensification of Chaucerian practice in The General Prologue. The recurrence of but and other syntactical construction with increasing subjectivity has never seemed significant to the readers of Spenser. But in the Prologue expresses an illogical or ambiguous relation between one aspect of human behavior or appearance, while in Proem it expresses a similar relation between an antique ideal “forgerie” of present time. In both works, the syntax indicates a dynamic, developing process whether it is a visual and narrational process or a visionary and self-expressive one.
Keywords: Talbot Donaldson, Chaucer, Spenser, syntax, human behavior, Proem, logical, illogical, but, The Faerie Queene
Fordham Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
