Note 41 — Chapter X · POETIC ACHIEVEMENT IN VERNACULAR
Reading edition
The rehearsal of all the conventionally appropriate loci of description at the funeral of Arcite (A 2919-2966) sounds to modern ears impatient, if not sarcastic. But, after all, the whole long passage is the “colour” occupatio (præteritio). The shorter occupatio in the Squire’s Tale (F 63-75) suggests sarcasm less by itself than in its connection with lines 32-40 and 401-408 quoted above.