Crossing the Threshold: Geoffrey Chaucer, Adam Smith, and the Liminal Transactionalism of the Later Middle Ages.
- Author / Editor
- Galloway, Andrew.
Crossing the Threshold: Geoffrey Chaucer, Adam Smith, and the Liminal Transactionalism of the Later Middle Ages.
- Published
- Craig E. Bertolet and Robert Epstein, eds. Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 157-77.
- Description
- Coins the phrase "liminal transactionalism" to characterize the late medieval combination of gift-exchange and commercial economies, arguing that a similar combination extends forward to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," challenging traditional medieval/postmedieval distinctions. Identifies blurred differences between “seeming commerce” and "seeming gifts" in ShT and claims that "elements both of commercial transactions and gift-giving relations" inhabit all of the GP characterizations, focusing on the descriptions of the Knight and Prioress before contrasting the "kinds of paradox interweaving commerce and gift" in KnT and PrT as well.
- Alternative Title
- Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
Knight and His Tale
Shipman and His Tale
Prioress and Her Tale