Calling: Langland, Gower, and Chaucer on Saint Paul

Description: Explores relations between concepts of selfhood and notions of spiritual and, especially, secular vocation in WBT, Langland's "Piers Plowman," and Gower's "Vox clamantis." The "wide scope" of late medieval applications of the Pauline notion of being "called" includes both the need for renewal and the "spiritual recoverability of the imperfect life." Assesses the Wife of Bath as a provisional "advocate of the messianic life" and comments on vocation or calling in HF.

Chaucer Subjects: Wife of Bath and Her Tale; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations; House of Fame