annotated bibliography
...ey. McAlpine, Monica E. “The Pardoner’s Homosexuality and How It Matters.” PMLA 95, 1 (1980): 8-22 McAlpine talks about irony in a different aspect. She says that because he uses fake relics to make money and to entice others away from true forgiveness, the relics become, like his body, sources of sin to himself and to others. Also, by offering the relics for veneration, he dupes his customers into kissing what is symbolically the instrument of that sodomitical sin he and they have learned to despise. She says that it is ironic that the pardoner is homosexual, when God says that he does not condone homosexuality. And since the pardoner is a man of God, he should be a good and pure man, not one connected with the sins of homosexuality. Mitchell, Charles. “The Moral Superiority of Chaucer’s Pardoner.” College English 27, 6 (1966): 437-444 Irony is a major aspect of many articles regarding the Pardoner’s Tale. Mitchell writes that the pardoner is a hypocrite, which in itself is ironic because when you are in God’s service you are supposed to practice what you preach. The pardoner most certainly does not do this. He preaches against things that he does himself, yet believes that they are not sins when he does them. He is above the common people and what are sins to them do not apply to him. Mitchell says that the pardoner is like Dostoevsky’s Fyodor Karamazov, who takes great pride in wallowing in sin and takes even greater pride in publicizing it. This is ironic because the pardoner is supposed to be sin-free, not committing sins and bragging about them. Owen Jr., Charles A. “Chaucer’s Pardoner” PMLA 98, 2 (1983): 253-256 Owen says that the pardoner calls himself a surrogate shrine to that of the one at Canterbury. The pardoner believes that the pilgrims should kneel and kiss his relics because they are just as good as the ones at Canterbury when in fact, they are not. The relics are false just like the pardoner himself. This is yet another example of the irony that fills the Pardoner’s Tale. The pardoner is supposed to be absolving sins by selling his “relics”, but in reality he is only making money for himself. He is supposed to be a servant of God but he is actually an imposter and a hypocrite. Reiss, Edmund. “The Final Irony of the Pardoner’s Tale.” College English 25, 4 (1964): 260-266 Reiss says that the pardoner first reveals himself as a charlatan in the beginning of the tale, a...