'Fer in the north; I kan nat telle where': Dialect, Regionalism, and Philologism

Author / Editor
Epstein, Robert.

Title
'Fer in the north; I kan nat telle where': Dialect, Regionalism, and Philologism

Published
SAC 30 (2008): 95-124.

Description
Analogous to orientalism, the "philologism" of RvT is rooted in "North-South binaries" that partake of and help to constitute southern condescension to northerners in England, even before the rise of a Standard Written Dialect. Informed by the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, the essay compares and contrasts the "regionalist generalizations" in RvT, The Second Shepherd's Play, and elsewhere in Middle English.

Chaucer Subjects
Reeve and His Tale
Language and Word Studies