pt. 1. A reappraisal of methods The iconographical approach -- The lexicographical approach -- pt. 2. Chaucer and medieval tradition: "The house of fame": the eagle as contemplative symbol -- "The nun's priest's tale": flattery and moralitas of the beast -- "The nun's priest's tale": Chauntecleer and medieval natural history -- The wife of Bath's prologue: book-burning and the veda of women's wiles -- "The pardoner's tale": old age and contemptus mundi -- pt. 3. The Renaissance tradition: Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton "The merry wives of Windsor": Falstaff as Actaeon, a dramatic emblem -- The faerie queen: Una and the clergy -- The faerie queen: the house of care -- The faerie queen: "errour" and the Renaissance -- Paradise lost: Milton's "sin", the problem of literary indebtedness -- Paradise lost: The devil and pharaoh's chivalry, etymological and typological imagery and Renaissance chronography -- A mask at Ludlow: Comus and Dionysiac revel
