Impolitic Bodies: Poetry, Saints, and Society in Fifteenth-Century England. The Work of Osbern Bokenham
- Author / Editor
- Delany, Sheila.
Impolitic Bodies: Poetry, Saints, and Society in Fifteenth-Century England. The Work of Osbern Bokenham
- Published
- New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Physical Description
- xii, 236 pp.
- Description
- Reads Bokenham's "Legends of Holy Women" as a parody of Chaucer's LGW, itself a parody of hagiography. By inverting Chaucer's parody, Bokenham critiques Chaucer's emphasis on the classics and reasserts an Augustinian emphasis on Christian aesthetics and ideals.
- Bokenham structures his work in imitation of LGW, but he reflects a more distinct concern with the female body and its parts. Supported by wealthy female patrons of Clare Abbey, Bokenham wages a "modest struggle" against the antifeminism of traditional hagiography.
- Through its Yorkist partisanship, his work casts light on contemporary concern with dynastic succession, especially as transmitted through females.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.
- Legend of Good Women.