Rewriting Perfect Friendship in Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" and Lydgate's "Fabula Duorum Mercatorum" Author(s): Robert Stretter Reviewed work(s): Source: The Chaucer Review, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2003), pp. 234-252 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25096207 . Accessed: 13/03/2013 02:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Chaucer Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 02:16:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REWRITINGPERFECT FRIENDSHIP IN CHAUCER'SKNIGHTS TALEAND LYDGATE'SFABULA DUORUM MERCATORUM byRobert Stretter Looking back at Geoffrey Chaucer's Knights Tale from a twenty-first cen one can see a classic "love men tury vantage point, easily triangle"?two over a fighting woman. In fact, Palamon and Arcite's tragic rivalry for the hand of Emelye offers a particularly good medieval instance of what Rene Girard has called "triangular desire," that is, desire mediated through a a rival.1 A in a third party, often strikingly similar scenario appears lesser known the Fabula duorum Chaucer's most distin text, mercatorum, by guished disciple, John Lydgate.