Talk:The Physician's Tale

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concerns afoot in the opening paragraphs

Latest comment: 8 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi, not a Wikipedia editor ever, and I’m being run over by work and don’t have time to be, so please pardon any use mistakes. However I’m on a bit of a late night wiki binge and I’ve two bits of concern in the intro section:

1. Having have read the thing myself, the usage of “domestic drama” in the opening feels a little wrong — typically the text would be conceived of as a moral drama or legal drama, I believe. Off of the top of my head, the Cambridge Chaucer companion calls it a human drama (page 188). That feels like an important distinction.

2. Though “The Physician's Tale is widely considered by Chaucerian scholars to be a failure, largely due to its convoluted moral message,” is attributed to perfectly fine articles, I gave both a read-over and found that this gloss might be incorrect or slanted (couldn’t find that meaning in either article). The first reference discusses Chaucer’s (the character) moral disappointment with the work, not the author, though the distinction is a bit oblique and I can see where the error comes up. The second references the convolution, but ascribes no value judgements. Perhaps the statement of failure comes from an interpretation of the plot? But if it is, that needs to be clarified, I think.

Apologies if either of these comments break Wikipedia formatting rules or anything. I truly haven’t the foggiest what I’m doing and I’ve not the time to learn so I’m putting this out on the talk in good faith for someone else to maybe pick up. Cheers! 165.106.120.82 (talk) 06:00, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

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