The Problem of the Hero in the Later Medieval Period
- Author / Editor
- Bloomfield Morton W.
The Problem of the Hero in the Later Medieval Period
- Published
- Burns, Norman T., and Christopher J. Reagan, eds. Concepts of the Hero in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Papers of the Fourth and Fifth Annual Conferences of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 2-3 May 1970, 1-2 May 1971 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), pp. 27-48.
- Description
- Documents the "absence of a true charismatic hero who is valiant and noble" in the literature of medieval western Europe, commenting on a wide variety of works, including those by Chaucer, and attributing the late-medieval "retreat from heroism" to a "Christian sadness" that is a kind of fatalism. In Chaucer, "it is surprising how few heroes we find." The central focus of Chaucer's work is Chaucer himself, rather than a traditional hero.
- Contributor
- Burns, Norman T., ed.
- Reagan, Christopher J., ed.
- Alternative Title
- Concepts of the Hero in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.