Jeffrey Helterman, “The Dehumanizing Metamorphoses of The Knight’s Tale”

Helterman, Jeffrey. “The Dehumanizing Metamorphoses of The Knight's Tale.” ELH

Halterman explains in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale the main characters who try to be elevated in status by the ideals of chivalry and love instead fall to the position of less than a beast. He accomplishes this conclusion in part by realizing Artice’s renunciation of his blood oath to Palamoun, which leads to his forfeit of human nature as a social and moral being. Using Chaucer’s sources, such as Boethius, Boccaccio and Gower, Halterman also discusses the Knight himself, briefly as a historical figure, but focused most on how the Knight character is unable to elevate himself through bloody conquest. Halterman argues that destruction and perversion of nature is a theme in The Knight’s Tale by using a bountiful amount of citations from both the tale and the sources of Chaucer.