Talk:The Man of Law's Tale

Rhetoric

Existing section reads:

The Man of Law tells his story in a pompous over-blown style as if he is defending Custance in a court of law. He also uses many rhetorical figures, taken straight from the manuals of rhetoric of the day, to emphasise Custance's noble character—as well as the teller's lawyerly skills—and state her case.

Only a few fragments of this paragraph are supportable by citations. The Introduction certainly has "a pompous over-blown style" but not much of the Tale does. I found a citation for part of the "rhetorical figures" claim and will include it. My original research (comparison with Gower) suggests that Chaucer has injected some references to God and Christ (eg MLT 449-511). These Christian injections are far more intrusive that the rhetorical devices which suggests the tale was originally intended for one of the clerical pilgrims. Rdmoore6 (talk) 05:36, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Confusion

this page is confusing, I have no idea what the Man of Law's tale is about after reading this wikipedia page. stan goldsmith 00:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I must agree with the previous writer of this page that the information seems very umm lacking of any usefull information... The reader in most cases would rather enjoy to find information on the character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.158.191.249 (talk) 22:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to appeal to what a hypothetical reader might need or want; it's an unproveable. Actually, the summary of the tale is fairly clear, as to the actions and events. What's less clear is the characters of Alla and Constance, and that is partly because the Man of Law himself is telling a saint's legend, and character is not really the point; they are supposed to be flat, with the good characters all excellent and the bad ones all completely horrid. I will try to revamp the summary when I get a spare moment. 24.81.19.230 (talk) 07:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Wrong Title

I've been reading, teaching and studying Chaucer for over 20 years, and I've never heard or seen this called "The Lawyer's Tale." Sounds like something the writer made up; suggest deletion. 24.81.19.230 (talk) 07:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Pushkin probably used a large part of this story's plot

in his http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/The_Tale_of_Tsar_Saltan 217.118.64.52 (talk) 10:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Contemplated Changes

A] Introduce material with citations comparing MLT with Gower's treatment of same material. As a start I have undone the following bit of vandalism:

21 February 2016‎ 190.58.249.7 (talk)‎ . . (9,418 bytes) (-882)‎ . . (→‎Summary) (undo)

by reinserting <ref>s to texts (with emendations).

B] Strengthen Rhetoric section

C] More material on Man of Law as narrator Published sources exist on these subjects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdmoore6 (talk • contribs) 23:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Revise the synopsis

The use of references MLT and CA throughout the document is very confusing for regular readers. The annotations need to be redone. 2601:14D:4A01:C6F0:B9B3:275A:4767:B093 (talk) 02:24, 20 December 2023 (UTC)