Dialogue of Love, Marriage and Maistrie in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Dialogue in intimate relationship can sometimes be used for getting or maintaining a position of power, and there are many ways of doing this. This thesis analyses in detail the power negotiations between marriage partners and lovers in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from the 14th century. The approach taken is that of historical dialogue analysis, a branch of historical pragmatics, combined with more traditional stylistics and perspectives of gender and language.