In Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, the main character Troilus depicts the overt and covert ideology of Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy. Clearly, Troilus meets with the Boethian question of free will, views it from the perspective of a Boethian universe, and closes with Boethius's suggestion to serve God. Less apparently, Troilus shows that in order to discern the ultimate Boethian position on free will, the conflict between reason and passion must also be resolved. Because he succumbs to passion and loses his ability to reason, Troilus appears illogical and negative when he discusses free will. In heaven, though, Troilus experiences the ultimate Boethian state and acclaims the final Boethian pronouncement that results from the resolution of not only the free will-necessity question but also the reason passion issue. Perceiving his situation intuitively and thus circumventing the deductive process, Troilus rejects a life given to following "blynde lust" and commends one dedicated to God. In doing so, he illustrates both the apparent and the obscure of Boethian philosophy.

In the more than five hundred years since the death of Geoffrey Chaucer, scholars have labored steadfastly to bring to light early criticisms of the poet's works, comments on his life and the customs of his time, and any recorded facts that would contribute in any way toward a better understanding and appreciation of the Canterbury Tales, the poet's life, and the practices of his age. It is the purpose of this study to show this contribution of scholarship; and the writer has relied heavily upon the publications made by T. R. Lounsbury, Caroline Spurgeon, and F. N. Robinson, each of whom has brought together the results of scholarship up to his own time and without whose works this writer's task would have been impossible.

This thesis explores Chaucer's devices for securing verisimilitude by various methods in the Canterbury Tales.

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Inaug.-diss.--Münster. / At head of title: Anglistik. Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. iii-vi.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-185). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Inaug. diss.--Berlin. / Lebenslauf.

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