The Shaping of English Poetry, The Shaping of English Poetry - Volume II: Essays on 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland, Chaucer and Spenser

This collection of essays is conceived not as a summary of past endeavours but as the beginning of an attempt to present a sense of the wholeness of a distinctively English literature from Beowulf to Spenser. The native alliterative tradition of England is represented by its final flowering in two essays on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and three on Piers Plowman . The renewal of English letters in the fourteenth century, inspired by continental models in French and Italian, is represented by four essays on Chaucer. The poetic achievement of these three medieval masters remains unmatched until Spenser announces himself in a third great age in the history of English poetry and this is represented by three essays on the first three books of The Faerie Queene . Spenser’s indebtedness to Langland and Chaucer, and his philosophical conservatism in drawing on the thought of Aristotle and the tradition of medieval commentary surrounding the works of Aristotle, ensure that the tradition of English poetry in the Renaissance is securely rooted in its medieval inheritance. This second volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry continues the project set out in the Preface to the first volume, discussing the three golden poets of the Golden Age of English poetry in the second half of the fourteenth century. The first two essays address the great alliterative poems Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman and the remaining six essays are on Chaucer, five of them on The Canterbury Tales. There is no doubt about the sustained excellence (and often the sublimity) of these works, and it remains a hard task for readers and scholars to measure up to them.
The essays on Chaucer are predominantly concerned with the influence of Italian poetry and Aristotelian moral philosophy. These influences have long been recognised, but their depth and weight have not so readily been acknowledged. In particular, the influence of Aristotle – not merely on Chaucer’s poetry but on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English and European culture as a whole – presents an intellectual challenge that scholars of medieval English literature have often been reluctant to confront. These essays seek to demonstrate that in engaging with Chaucer’s response to Aristotelian moral philosophy our perspective will not only be enriched but dramatically altered. The significance of the pentangle symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The action of the hunting and bedroom scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The meaning of kind wit, conscience and reason in the first vision of Piers Plowman Langland's conception of favel, guile, liar and false in the first vision of Piers Plowman The status and meaning of meed in the first vision of Piers Plowman The universality of the portraits in the general prologue to the Canterbury tales Rhetorical perspectives in the general prologue to the Ganterbury tales A defence of Dorigen's complaint The self-revealing tendencies of Chaucer's pardoner Holiness as the first of Spenser's Aristotelian moral virtues The idea of temperance in the second book of The faerie queene The meaning of Spenser's chastity as the fairest of virtues. Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Abbrevations 11 Preface 19 1 Medieval Misogyny and Gawain’s Outburst against Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 25 2 The Dignity of Langland’s Meed 47 3 Chaucer’s Adaptation of Boccaccio’s Temple of Venus in The Parliament of Fowls 69 4 Moral and Social Identity and the Idea of Pilgrimage in the General Prologue 117 5 Obscenity and Fastidiousness in The Miller’s Tale 153 6 Chaucer’s Man of Law and the Argument for Providence 189 7 The Logic of The Clerk’s Tale 233 8 Boccaccio’s Filocolo and the Moral Argument of The Franklin’s Tale 267 Index 293 This Collection Of Essays Is Conceived Not As A Summary Of Past Endeavours But As The Beginning Of An Attempt To Present A Sense Of The Wholeness Of A Distinctively English Literature From Beowulf To Spenser. [v. I]. Essays On Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer, And Spenser -- V. Ii. Essays On Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Langland And Chaucer -- V. Iii. Essays On Beowulf, Dante, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Langland, Chaucer And Spenser. Gerald Morgan. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. A collection of essays that is conceived not as a summary of past endeavours but as the beginning of an attempt to present a sense of the wholeness of a distinctively English literature from Beowulf to Spenser. This book discusses the three golden poets of the Golden Age of English poetry in the second half of the fourteenth century, concentrating in particular on Chaucer's response to Aristotelian moral philosophy.