In this study, Norman Klassen shows how Chaucer explores the complexity of the relationship between love and knowledge through recourse to the motif of sight. The convention of love at first sight involves love, knowledge, and sight, but insists that the claims of love and the realm of the rational are in strict opposition. In the metaphysical tradition, however, the relationship between love, knowledge and sight is more complex, manifesting both qualities of opposition and of symbiosis, similar to that found in late medieval natural philosophy. The author argues that Chaucer is unorthodox in...
In this study, Norman Klassen shows how Chaucer explores the complexity of the relationship between love and knowledge through recourse to the motif o...