The Protagonist as Sufferer: A Critical Inquiry into a Topos in Chaucer and Spenser.

Author / Editor
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.

Title
The Protagonist as Sufferer: A Critical Inquiry into a Topos in Chaucer and Spenser.

Published
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.06 (1967): 2205A.

Description
Traces the topos of the sufferer as protagonist in classical, Christian, and late Latin sources and explores it "as an element" in KnT, TC, and Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," arguing that Chaucer tends to emphasize "the value of acceptant suffering" while Spenser is more concerned with the "value of action." Considers the imagery of suffering as well as suffering as psychological state.

Chaucer Subjects
Knight and His Tale
Troilus and Criseyde
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations