Infectious Fear: The Rhetoric of Pestilence in Middle English Didactic Texts on Death.
- Author / Editor
- Lawrence, Tom.
Infectious Fear: The Rhetoric of Pestilence in Middle English Didactic Texts on Death.
- Published
- English Studies 98 (2017): 866-80.
- Description
- Examines the "rhetoric of pestilence" as a "powerful contemplative tool" that urges readers to "self-examination, penitence, and a more active, strategic approach to death" in five texts: PardT, John Lydgate's "Danse Macabre," "The Castle of Perseverance," and "A Disputation between the Body and Worms." Argues that PardT is didactic; despite the Pardoner's questionable morality, the tale warns against immoral recklessness and encourages a "proactive, strategic approach to mortality."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Pardoner and His Tale