Chaucer's Death, Lydgate's Guild, and the Construction of Community in Fifteenth-Century English Literature.

Author / Editor
Whearty, Bridget.

Title
Chaucer's Death, Lydgate's Guild, and the Construction of Community in Fifteenth-Century English Literature.

Published
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 40 (2018): 331-73.

Description
Identifies a "pray for Chaucer" trope in fifteenth-century commentary on the poet, observing a "metaphor of literary history" that is based in "guild-like community," underpinned by notions of purgatory, intercession, and friendship. Rooted in Thomad Hoccleve's attention to "communal responsibility for Chaucer's soul," and deepened by John Lydgate, the "'pray for Chaucer' tradition" was modified by William Caxton, reworked as an exclusionary "cult of Father Chaucer."

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion