ABSTRACT
The authenticity of the Retractions itself has been questioned, but the manuscript evidence in its favour is very strong, and the tradition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s death-bed repentance arises so early that it seems likely at least to have a basis in fact. The Second Nun’s Tale is Chaucer’s simplest and most wholehearted treatment of a saint’s legend. The contrast between the Christian life and the Christian expectation is more sharply put when Tiburce expresses his horror that he should be taken to Urban, and Chaucer allows something more like actual life to show through the legendary structure. Tiburce’s fears are real fears. There is yet another way in which Chaucer’s religious poetry is clearly distinguished from his use of moral-philosophical material. In the devotional poetry there is none of the elegance and none of the careful restraint which he brings to a moral-philosophical topic.
