The Arming of the Warrior in European Literature and in Chaucer

Author / Editor
Brewer, Derek.

Title
The Arming of the Warrior in European Literature and in Chaucer

Published
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 221-43.

Description
Recognition of the arming of the warrior "topos" guides us to many formal arming passages: in the Babylonian epic, the "Iliad," The Bible, the "Aeneid," Irish literature, "Beowulf," the "Chanson de Roland," "Erec et Enide," the Arthurian series, fourteenth-century English romances, rhymed and alliterative. Elaborations of the "topos" and the order followed are familiar from the "Iliad" onwards. The "Gawain"-poet finally naturalized the topos, and, in Th, Chaucer effectively killed it.

Alternative Title
Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C.

Chaucer Subjects
Tale of Sir Thopas.