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9780271058948 Academic Inspection Copy

Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising

Poetry and the Problem of the Populace After 1381
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Examines the transmission of Greco-Roman and European literature into English in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when literacy was burgeoning among men and women from the nonruling classes in England.


Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Chaucer’s and Gower’s Early Readership Expanded

2 Against the Greyness of the Multitude: Poetry, Prestige, and the Confessio Amantis

3 Time After Time: Historiography and Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

4 In Defense of Cupid: Poetics, Gender, and the Legend of Good Women

5 Chaucer on the Effects of Poetry

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index


“This study represents a welcome consideration of two major poets’ responses to a moment of substantial social upheaval, suggesting provocatively that the Rising had important ramifications for English literary culture not only in its own time, but also for the present day. Arner’s book will be of interest to the many scholars invested in the legacies of 1381, as well as those interested more broadly in the interplay of poetry, politics, and literacy in later medieval England. This book also invites further work on classical reception among the growing ranks of nonelite readers during this period, an exciting endeavor that Arner’s study proves can produce stimulating results.”

—Leah Klement, Speculum

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