The Idea of Public Poetry in the Reign of Richard II.
- Author / Editor
- Middleton, Anne.
The Idea of Public Poetry in the Reign of Richard II.
- Published
- Speculum 53 (1978): 94-114.
- Description
- Defines and describes the social and rhetorical emphases that characterize the persona and poetic "common voice" of late-medieval English "public poetry," exemplified here most extensively in analyses of Langland's "Piers Plowman" and Gower's "Confessio Amantis," but cast into relief by Chaucer's practices in CT, especially in MLT, FranT, and Mel. The voice is "common" insofar as it is "vernacular, practical, worldly, plain, public-spirited, and peace-loving" (96) speaking to their "audience's best and most actively responsible selves as members of the human community" (109).
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism
Style and Versification
Canterbury Tales--General
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations