Political Animals: Form and the Animal Fable in Langland's Rodent Parliament and Chaucer's "Nun's Priest's Tale."
- Author / Editor
- Strakhov, Elizaveta.
Political Animals: Form and the Animal Fable in Langland's Rodent Parliament and Chaucer's "Nun's Priest's Tale."
- Published
- Yearbook of Langland Studies 32 (2018): 289-313.
- Description
- Identifies food-chain predation and ecosystemic competition as formal elements of animal fables; then examines these dynamics in NPT, the Rat Parliament of Langland's "Piers Plowman," and their respective allusions to the Uprising of 1381 and to the English Parliaments of 1376 and 1377. Though varied, the two narratives capitalize on their animal-fable genre to critique hierarchical power, assert the value of laboring commons, and advocate political counsel rather than rebellion.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Nun's Priest and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations