Part Seventeen

The Physician’s Tale, somewhat neglected during the nineteenth century, has enjoyed a resurgence of scholarly attention over the past quarter century. The early sources of the tale bequeathed to Chaucer an exemplum of the abuse of justice: a father kills his daughter to prevent an unscrupulous judge from taking possession of her. In Chaucer’s hands, however, the tale undergoes a number of changes and additions by which it becomes peculiarly his.

Helen Storm Corsa gives scrupulous attention to the strategies by which Chaucer appropriates the tale, particularly the addition of the long passage dealing with the topic of Natura Genetrix and the surprising advice to governesses on the care of their charges, a section that has yielded a considerable amount of political commentary. Taken together, the two passages lend the tale a rich intertexuality that makes it, in Corsa’s survey, a fruitful source of interpretation for scholarship.

Corsa demonstrates above all else that The Physician’s Tale will continue to make tantalizing claims on our interest and attention. Most interesting of all, she shows, is that Chaucer seems deliberately to have set aside both the political and the moral implications of his originals for the sake of artistic ends-definition of which continues to challenge the scholarly community. This unusually full treatment of The Physician’s Tale should prove to be an indispensable aid to student and teacher alike.