'Nowelis Flood' and Other Nowels
- Author / Editor
- Whaley, Diana.
'Nowelis Flood' and Other Nowels
- Published
- Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade and John Frankis, ed. Language Usage and Description: Studies Presented to N. E. Osselton on the Occasion of His Retirement (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991), pp. 5-16.
- Description
- The phrase "Nowelis Flood" near the end of MilT has commonly been taken as a malapropism, an instance of the carpenter's complacent ignorance. Whaley tests this assumption against the evidence of manuscript readings, meter, and literary contexts; examines usage of the word and the name "no(w)el" in the later Middle Ages; and explores possible associations of the word in MilT.
- Alternative Title
- Language Usage and Description: Studies Presented to N. E. Osselton on the Occasion of His Retirement.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Miller and His Tale.