Leicester Jr. brings up an interesting concept of "Chaucer the poem" and that through the characters of the poem we discover the artist behind the work. I think this is an excellent line of reasoning. Attempts to discern the "author" from the "character" is inherently problematic. Leicester states that "we come across a passage that we have difficulty reconciling with the sensibility - the temperament or the training or the intelligence - of the pilgrim in question...[we say] this passage must be the work of Chaucer the poet." He disagrees with this, as do I. Our judgement of what is Chaucer the poet is based on a likely personal and certainly arbitrary set of standards. Furthermore it requires a frankly wide jump in reasoning to assert all sections which seem out of character to the poet and not the character. It should be noted as Leicester, Jr. makes clear that the poet is everywhere; he is the tales. Moreover, as he as a poet clearly writes for multiple voices it would be logical that he could write for multiple opinions, and indeed harbor multiple even contradictory opinions.

Leicester Jr. makes the excellent point that these characters are "products" rather than "producers" of their tales. In the Wife of Baathe's tale she defends premarital sex stating "Thou seist that oxen, asses, hors, and houndes, / They been assayed at diverse stoundes; / Bacyns, lavours, er that men hem bye" (l. 285ff). She uses this and a series of other analogies. This sets up the Wife of Baathe as not only self-aware, but reasoning and the originator of a line of questioning which undermines what I presume to be the moral characterizations of such behavior. It would be interesting to see if these analogies would resonate with those in Chaucer's audience, thus supporting her point, or are not analogous and thus reemphacizing her lechery.