The Old Man and the Earth: Alterity and Otherness of a Medieval Story

Author / Editor
Boitani, Piero.

Title
The Old Man and the Earth: Alterity and Otherness of a Medieval Story

Published
Piero Boitani. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1989), pp. 1-19.

Description
Comparing the old man in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and the old man in PardT, Boitani explores the medieval "other" or "discarded image of the universe," which depends on a "hermeneutic openness" that makes the modern reader perceive the "modernity" of medieval literature and specifically the PardT. Treats the quest for death, the psychological character of the old man, and the uncanniness of death.

Alternative Title
The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Pardoner and His Tale.