John R. Searle asks the following fundamental question at the beginning of Speech Acts: "What is the difference between saying something and meaning it and saying it without meaning it?" This dissertation demonstrates that Chaucer is interested in this same question and that his answer to it is essentially "modern." I show in a number of Chaucer's works, but primarily through a reading of the Friar's Tale, that Chaucer understands the intentional structure of all signs, based on the paradigm of language; that is, that signs are always simultaneously mind-related and world-related, that they possess what is called today a "three-level semantics." This semantics is at the heart of the dynamic play in Chaucer's poetry, and through it he is able to portray his characters psychologically. This being so, with Chaucer as an exemplar, this dissertation calls into question the widespread belief in a "medieval mentality" that is essentially "other" than a "modern mentality." / To support this argument in the context of medieval thought, I explain that Chaucer could have such a "modern" understanding of the psychological import of language by describing certain of the common, shared presuppositions and characteristics of medieval Judeo-Christian metaphysics: its thesis of intentionality, its personalism and existentialism, and its semiological nature. / The present study is of importance to Chaucerian studies in general because I argue that heretofore Chaucer's understanding of language has been inadequately, incorrectly, and confusedly described in terms of medieval nominalism and realism. Consequently, Chaucer has been seen as a nominalist thinker, a realist thinker or a combination of both. This dissertation lays these particular "Chaucers" to rest. I argue that Chaucer may be described as an "intentionalist realist," but the "realist" of this description is not identical with the "realism" of the scholastic debates on the nature of the universals. / This dissertation further suggests that the semantics which Chaucer consciously considers and exploits in his works on the level of language, speech and other human-directed signs may serve as a paradigm of a general Chaucerian "semantics" in an extended sense: Chaucer's understanding of a structure of meaning or logos of all reality. On an individual human level this translates into a structure whereby a medieval Christian may judge if a person, including his or her own self, is relating properly, or improperly, to other individuals, to other created things, and to God.

This study provides a new reading of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale and considers its purpose within the context of the Canterbury Tales. I argue that the Tale, as an exemplum, demonstrates the dangers of tale-telling, and exposes the moral discrepancies of the Canterbury tale-telling competition and the pilgrims’ use of stories as verbal assaults against one another. I argue that the Tale condemns the unchristian-like “actions” of the Christians within its frame as they respond to the clergeon’s murder; the Tale’s ending presents a cathartic response from this congregation, which indicates their understanding of the clergeon’s martyrdom. It also provokes a similar response from the Canterbury pilgrims, which serves to silence them, and to create a paradox that disrupts possible responses to the Tale. Further, Chaucer’s Retraction at the end of the Tales is intended to silence the poet’s critics through the creation of a similar paradox.

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This study provides a new reading of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale and considers its purpose within the context of the Canterbury Tales. I argue that the Tale, as an exemplum, demonstrates the dangers of tale-telling, and exposes the moral discrepancies of the Canterbury tale-telling competition and the pilgrims’ use of stories as verbal assaults against one another. I argue that the Tale condemns the unchristian-like “actions” of the Christians within its frame as they respond to the clergeon’s murder; the Tale’s ending presents a cathartic response from this congregation, which indicates their understanding of the clergeon’s martyrdom. It also provokes a similar response from the Canterbury pilgrims, which serves to silence them, and to create a paradox that disrupts possible responses to the Tale. Further, Chaucer’s Retraction at the end of the Tales is intended to silence the poet’s critics through the creation of a similar paradox.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University. / Bibliography: p. 141-148.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1997. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-233).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1990. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [291]-306).

Thesis--Zurich. / Contains extensive passages from Chaucer. Bibliography: p. 285-288.

Thesis--Princeton. / Photocopy (positive) of typescript. Bibliography: leaves 543-558.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1903.