Literal Authority: The Exemplum and Its Traditions in Middle English Literature

Author / Editor
Scanlon, Larry.

Title
Literal Authority: The Exemplum and Its Traditions in Middle English Literature

Published
Dissertation Abstracts International 48 (1987): 387A.

Description
Originating as a device of classical rhetoric, the exemplum became a genre in its own right through the church. Preachers brought it to a lay audience, and poets (Gower, Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Lydgate) eventually secularized it in various ways.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.