Critical debates of the last century and the first decades of this century concerning Chaucer’s authorial intention in the Canterbury Tales have been defined by two poles: simply put, on one hand, those who read authorial moral seriousness into the Tales, and, on the other, those who read authorial subversive ends into them. By means of a sustained engagement with some representative voices from these poles and careful readings, this article steers away from extreme positions to propose a modicum of common ground. The presence of Romans 15:4 in the moralitas at the end of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Chaucer’s Retraction a priori injects a dose of (unsimplistic) moral earnest into Chaucer’s entente in the Tales.
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