Sensory Satires and the Virtues of Herbs in Sir Thopas’s Fair Forest

Abstract:The parodic, exaggerated nature of The Tale of Sir Thopas has long been recognized in scholarship on the Canterbury Tales. Formally and thematically, it has been said to represent an affectionate criticism of the type of vernacular tail-rhyme romances that was read widely in fourteenth-century England. However, despite concerted efforts to elucidate the various parodic (and, indeed, satiric) elements of the first of “Chaucer’s” contributions to the storytelling contest, little attention has been given to the critical possibilities offered by a medical reading of the herbs contained in the “fair forest” encountered by Sir Thopas (lines 760–65). The aim of this sketch, then, will be to illustrate how an understanding of the humoral qualities associated with licorice, zedoary, cloves, and nutmeg augments the irony of Thopas becoming lovestruck following his experience of the birdsong. It will be argued that the foundations of Thopas’s impetuosity derives from the hot, sweet-smelling herbs having already tipped our delicate child hero into a semicholeric passion.