Let us begin with an example from Chaucer's poetry that is more complicated than it at first appears. In the Knight's Tale, the conact between Palamon and bite begins with the very familiar introduction of Emily. The description draws on a number of motifs that are immediately familiar to the reader of medieval romance: the temporal setting is that of May, the month of lovers; we meet Emily in a garden very much like the garden which Amans from Le Roman de la Rose entered, and both recall the comparison of the beloved with an enclosed garden in the biblical Song of Songs; the beautiful Emily is compared to Bowers, especially the rose; and, most importantly, when Palamon and then Arcite see her, her beauty instantly pierces them to the heart, inflicting on them the intense and overriding pain of love. What specifically has been overridden is the faculty of reason in the lovers, and what ensues is a long conflict between the claims of love and the realm of the rational.

This is the convention of love at first sight, and Chaucer, like Boccaccio before him in Il Teseida, expresses it beautifully. From the first exchange between Palamon and Arcite onward, however, elements of the tale suggest that Chaucer has more sophisticated plans than a straightforward restatement of the opposition of love and rational knowledge. While what has happened to both knights typically entails the overthrow of reason, the exchange between Palamon and Arcite on what tbis event means is markedly rational.