The 'Descriptio Navalis Pugnae' in Middle English Literature
- Author / Editor
- Hamel, Mary.
The 'Descriptio Navalis Pugnae' in Middle English Literature
- Published
- Robert R. Edwards, ed. Art and Context in Late Medieval English Narrative: Essays in Honor of Robert Worth Frank, Jr. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 149-62
- Description
- Critics have attributed Chaucer's description of naval warfare in the Legend of Cleopatra to his knowledge of contemporary battles. Hamel argues instead that Chaucer, like other medieval writers and even historians, drew the elements of his description from a common literary or rhetorical topos. The details of these battles seem realistic because the topos itself was "based on actual practice."
- Contributor
- Edwards, Robert R.,ed.
- Alternative Title
- Art and Context in Late Medieval English Narrative: Essays in Honor of Robert Worth Frank, Jr.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Legend of Good Women.
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.