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Articles

Volume 09, Number 2 (1984)

"River Two Blind Jacks": Dave Godfrey's Chaucerian Allegory

  • Lorraine M. York
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1984-06-06

Abstract

As Northrop Frye has noted, Canadian literature is remarkably similar, at times, to Middle English literary works, such as the medieval debate form of "The Owl and the Nightingale" or Chaucer's "Parliament of Fowls." The similarity is most evident in the notions of a bleak environment confronting the artistic mind, and the vision of a man coming to terms with the social and religious structures and protocol of the day. In Dave Godfrey's story "River Two Blind Jacks," the motifs and the structures of "The Pardoner's Tale" are used in a contemporary setting. The religious and social allegory of Chaucer's tale remains largely intact, albeit modified and transplanted.