Authority and Character in Middle English Literature

Description: "This study argues that, in major Middle English works, authority is the central issue involved in concepts of character and of relationships beween characters. 'Havelok the Dane,' 'King Horn,' 'Sir Orfeo,' Malory's works, and 'The Canterbury Tales' examine the question of what gives one man power over another and this question is the central concern of these works . . . . Chaucer examines authority . . . on three levels, mainly: the relation between author and reader, between characters on the pilgrimage, and between characters within the tales. And at each of these levels authority is an ambivalent matter."