ABSTRACT
Some drastic modem criticism maintains that all stories are, at bot tom, as it were allegories about progress towards death, but also a postponement, because they have to offer a start in life.1 That is a modem view which opens up a stimulating vista o f many plots, but does not always fit the medieval plot. For one thing, in the medieval period, despite a natural and widespread horror o f death as physical decay (which must have been a familiar sight but which Chaucer never writes about) there was also a general belief in life after death, followed by a general Judgement - though that in itself offered complete finality: Doomsday. Historically speaking, belief in life after death has been far more frequendy found in human cultures than the general modem Western belief that we are mere accidental and transitory fragments o f an arbitrary and valueless evolution. So death had different terrors for many. But Chaucer’s quest is for life, not death. He dismisses mourning at the end o f Troilus and is flippant about it in The Knight's Tale and elsewhere. Yet he cannot ignore death nor its pain. Life must mean death in some way.
