The Dialectic of Divine Omnipotence in the Age of Chaucer

Author / Editor
Courtenay, William J.

Title
The Dialectic of Divine Omnipotence in the Age of Chaucer

Published
Keiper, Hugo, Richard J. Utz, and Cristoph Bode, eds. Nominalism and Literary Discourse: New Perspectives (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 111-21.

Description
Surveys the history and state of scholarship on a key concept of fourteenth-century nominalism--the dialectic of divine omnipotence--and its applications to Chaucerian and other Middle English texts. Warns that a view of the "potentia absoluta" as undermining the self-binding, convenantal relation of God to his established "ordo" can lead scholars astray.

Alternative Title
Nominalism and Literary Discourse: New Perspectives.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.