Chaucer and the Authority of Language: The Politics and Poetics of the Vernacular in Late Medieval England

Description: Chaucer used English as a revolutionary gesture: "the vernacular destroyed the intellectual and political control of the aristocrats of church and state." Potter addresses several 14th-century English concerns: aristocratic control exercised through use of French and Latin; relationships between "power and modes of discourse" and among "literacy, gender, and social class"; and the implications of these "social and linguistic relationships."; Findings are applied to WBP, SqT, Astr, BD, HF, LGW, CT, and GP Prioress.

Chaucer Subjects: Background and General Criticism.; Canterbury Tales--General; Treatise on the Astrolabe; Book of the Duchess; House of Fame; Legend of Good Women