Socioliterary Practice in Late Medieval England

Author / Editor
Barr, Helen.

Title
Socioliterary Practice in Late Medieval England

Published
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Physical Description
viii, 229 pp.

Description
Seven interrelated studies and an afterword that explore "socioliterary practice," considering literature as a material form of social behavior in "internal and dialectical relationship" with the institutions and conventions that shape it and that it helps to shape. Topics include "Pearl," "Wynnere and Wastoure," Hoccleve's "To Sir John Oldcastle," Gower's "Tripartite Chronicle," Wycliffite writings, "The Boke of Cupide," "Mum and the Sothsegger," Lydgate's "The Churl and the Bird," and several works by Chaucer. An exploration of "social semantics," ManT "shows explicitly that literary language is a material form of social practice." With diction similar to that of more controversial texts, LGWP is about the policing of "orders of discourse." Engaging the uprisings of 1381, NPT is a radical, vernacular reflection of the struggle for social representation and empowerment.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Legend of Good Women.
Manciple and His Tale.
Nun's Priest and His Tale.