"Chaucer's Sense of Illusion: Roadside Drama Reconsidered"

"Chaucer's Sense of Illusion: Roadside Drama Recosidered." Jordan, Robert M. ELH, Vol. 29, No. 1 (March, 1962), pp. 18-33.

In this article Jordan is mostly arguing against the theory of the Canterbury Tales as a sort of roadside drama. He claims that because Chaucer inserts himself regularily into the text as it's author, he disrupts the reader's sense of illusion, pulling us out of the world of the fiction. Jordan says that the critics who support roadside drama have gone too far, citing some who claim to be able to read so far into the interactions of the Pilgrims as to figure out their pasts, and others who claim that Chaucer must have known each of the Pilgrims personally. He also makes the interesting claim that Chaucer's many apologies for the stories he 'has' to report does not show that Chaucer had any problem writing or telling any 'inappropriate' stories, but are actually used to pull the reader out of the illusion, reminding them that they are the ones who are taking the game in earnest, not the Pilgrims themselves. He also argues that too many critics try to find an 'organic' wholeness to the tales, when in fact the unity is 'mechanic', contrived by Chaucer to fit his purposes.

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Malissa Kent