Greetings, everyone - This is an expansion of the précis I sent to Candace.
I am interested in how Chaucer, as a diplomat, would have described restraint or tact in his works. The concept of “tact” is expressed in Chaucer’s time, but the word itself is not attested by the OED until well afterward. Chaucer uses “feeling” where modern English speakers might use “tact” – an interesting detail, as both words are semantically linked with ideas of touching and being touched, both physically and emotionally.
In my paper I will explore this and other aspects of what I’m calling Chaucer’s affective vocabulary, charting the semantic range of Chaucer’s terms “feeling” and “feele” as well as “rewen,” looking at the context of these terms, and seeing where analogues and sources can illuminate them. The list grows as one thinks of other terms treating feelings and emotions; caution about expressing feelings; and moments of throwing caution to the wind.
My goal is to generate a taxonomy of Chaucer’s affective vocabulary and learn what passages or works might be fruitfully re-read in light of that taxonomy. I am also interested Chaucer’s use of apophasis as a way of behaving “tactfully,” for example (and perhaps most famously) in Tr 3.1576: “I passe al that which chargeth nought to seye.” Of course, this rhetorical device complicates the making of a word-list, since it involves significant silences as well as speech or writing.
My question: Should the paper focus tightly on just one work (Troilus would probably give me plenty of information) or on the Chaucer canon? Thanks!
