Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising : Poetry and the Problem of the Populace After 1381

__Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising__ examines the transmission of Greco-Roman and European literature into English during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, while literacy was burgeoning among men and women from the nonruling classes. This dissemination offered a radically democratizing potential for accessing, interpreting, and deploying learned texts. Focusing primarily on an overlooked sector of Chaucer’s and Gower’s early readership, namely, the upper strata of nonruling urban classes, Lynn Arner argues that Chaucer’s and Gower’s writings engaged in elaborate processes of constructing cultural expertise. These writings helped define gradations of cultural authority, determining who could contribute to the production of legitimate knowledge and granting certain socioeconomic groups political leverage in the wake of the English Rising of 1381. __Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising__ simultaneously examines Chaucer’s and Gower’s negotiations—often articulated at the site of gender—over poetics and over the roles that vernacular poetry should play in the late medieval English social formation. This study investigates how Chaucer’s and Gower’s texts positioned poetry to become a powerful participant in processes of social control.

Chaucer, Gower, and the Vernacular Rising examines thetransmission of Greco-Roman and European literature into Englishduring the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, whileliteracy was burgeoning among men and women from the nonrulingclasses. This dissemination offered a radically democratizingpotential for accessing, interpreting, and deploying learned texts.Focusing primarily on an overlooked sector of Chaucer's and Gower'searly readership, namely, the upper strata of nonruling urbanclasses, Lynn Arner argues that Chaucer's and Gower's writingsengaged in elaborate processes of constructing cultural expertise.These writings helped define gradations of cultural authority,determining who could contribute to the production of legitimateknowledge and granting certain socioeconomic groups politicalleverage in the wake of the English Rising of 1381. Chaucer,Gower, and the Vernacular Rising simultaneously examinesChaucer's and Gower's negotiations-often articulated at the site ofgender-over poetics and over the roles that vernacular poetryshould play in the late medieval English social formation. Thisstudy investigates how Chaucer's and Gower's texts positionedpoetry to become a powerful participant in processes of socialcontrol.

This book examines the transmission of Greco-Roman and European literature into English in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when literacy was burgeoning among men and women from the nonruling classes in England. -- Provided by publisher