Author(s)

Han Shi

Corresponding Author

Han Shi

ABSTRACT

Metaphorical rhetoric is widespread in human discourses about the expressions of diseases. This paper takes Sontag's idea of illness as metaphor to deconstruct in-depth the invisible context of plague and the outward characteristics of individual illnesses latent in The Canterbury Tales. The author finds that even though the plague doesn’t act as a dominant background, it is used extensively throughout the text as a discursive label of powerful rhetorical energy and assumes an interpretive and transformative function. Its metaphorical system forms an interactive relationship with the objective social reality, exposing the crumbling and dark English society of the Middle Ages through the implicit character of the disease discourse, emphasizing the uncertainty and reflection of Chaucer's personal and English people's views on religion, medicine, humanism and love under the impact of the plague.

KEYWORDS

Metaphor, Mass plague, Individual disease, Humanism