"Watte vocat": Human and Animal Naming in Gower's "Visio."
- Author / Editor
- Parsons, Ben.
"Watte vocat": Human and Animal Naming in Gower's "Visio."
- Published
- Journal of English and Germanic Philology 119 (2020): 380-98.
- Description
- Reveals how the common, generally lower-class forenames in the "Visio Anglie" portion of Gower's "Vox clamantis" reinforce the "degraded, bestial character" that Gower attributes to the rioters of 1381. Because the names could apply to animals or to humans, both "human and non-human dimensions are visible" in the allegory. In addition to pointing to a general social collapse, these names place the rebels in a "conceptual borderland" between bestial and human. Study sheds light on Chaucer's animal names, including "Colle" in NPT and the Summoner’s ability to cry "Watte" (Walter/rabbit) in GP.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Language and Word Studies
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
Nun's Priest and His Tale