The Writing Lesson of 1381

Author / Editor
Crane, Susan.

Title
The Writing Lesson of 1381

Published
Barbara A. Hanawalt, ed. Chaucer's England: Literature in Historical Context (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 201-21.

Description
Asserts the importance of assaults on written documents in the so-called Peasants' Revolt of 1381, exploring the hegemony that writing represented to the rebels. Assesses how Langland's revisions of Piers Plowman reflect his concerns with the identity of the "commons" and how Chaucer represents the Wife of Bath as counterliterate and therefore similar to the rebels, especially one book-burning woman, Margaret Starre.

Alternative Title
Chaucer's England: Literature in Historical Context.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.