ABSTRACT
Once deployed, the question is raised of how we are expected to read such references. One way is simply to allow the effect of sententiousness to register, but D.W. Robertson (1962) puts forward the claim that Chaucer and his contemporaries (by which he meant his learned contemporaries) would have automatically read these texts in essentially allegorical terms, translating the symbols and events to give a religious moral to every text. Such reading is called ‘exegesis’ – which strictly refers to the critical interpretation of any text, but tends to be associated with religious texts. Certainly exegesis flourished, in part reflecting the fact that all philosophical enquiry took place under the heading of theology, in part reflecting a love of categorising and decoding and a habit of intricate and learned discussion. Chaucer clearly parodies this kind of interpretation in the way the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner deal with their texts, and arguably uses it more seriously in the Tales of Melibee and the Parson [139, 1487]. Roberston asserts that is the primary tool for understanding all of Chaucer, a view which has faded from popularity, but had important effects at the time. Exegetical readings cannot be dismissed entirely.
