Old Age in Middle English Literature: Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and the Gawain-Poet
- Author / Editor
- Mehl, Dieter.
Old Age in Middle English Literature: Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and the Gawain-Poet
- Published
- Christa Jansohn, ed. Old Age and Ageing in British and American Culture and Literature. Studien zur englischen Literatur, no 16 (Mùˆnster: LIT Verlag, 2004), pp. 29-38.
- Description
- Explores the representation of old age in WBPT, MerT, PardT, Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Confessio Amantis, and the Book of Margery Kempe, arguing that the motif of old age falls into three distinct categories: "the comical figure of the impotent lover, the ugly witch[,] or the disturbing reminder of death" (p.37). Instances of "the realities of ageing" are rare, but traces of this experience can be found in Chaucer and Langland and particularly in the Book of Margery Kempe.
- Contributor
- Jansohn, Christa, ed.
- Alternative Title
- Old Age and Ageing in British and American Culture and Literature.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of bath and her Tale
- Merchant and His Tale
- Pardoner and His Tale