Word as Bond in English Literature from the Middle Ages to the RestorationFor centuries, the transmission of power in feudal European society depended on a code of fidelity, of political allegiance, and truth to one's word. The word as bond extended to include not only the pledge of allegiance between subject and king, but the troth-plight between lovers, the vow of friendship, and the judicial oath. Society was ultimately based upon a gentleman's or gentlewoman's word that was itself underwritten by the Word of God. J. Douglas Canfield argues that English literature of the feudal epoch placed this master trope of word as bond at the center of conflict. The trope does not passively reflect social reality; rather, it helps to define, to constitute the society and its values. Both society and literature were preoccupied by the contest between fidelity on the one hand and its antithesis, betrayal (with the political and sexual anarchy that it threatened) on the other. In literature, the conflict was usually resolved through supernatural aid, the intervention of the Logos, which guaranteed the validity of the word. Canfield analyzes over 25 representative works, focusing on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dryden, in the five dominant modes of aristocratic literature-romance, comedy, lyric, tragedy, and satire. In each chapter, he offers three examples, one from the Middle Ages, one from the Renaissance, and one from the Restoration. Canfield's study proceeds synchronically, attempting to show that the trope is always under stress. The language of heroic romance coexists with the language of subversive comedy and absurdist satire. In an Afterword, he suggests why the trope disappears--not from the discourse, where it remains to this day, but from the center of conflict in English literature after 1688. |
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... death to be left by the ebb in their originating slime . Thus Beowulf's act guarantees the hegemony of the patriarchal order over the matri- archal . Thus it guarantees the continuity of society and its code of the word : " I promise ...
... death is not always retribution . Witness the significance of the figure of the Old Man in the tale . To him , death is not an evil but a positive good , a “ grace " ( 737 ) . He does not flee death but agonizes that death will not take ...
... death at the hands of King Lott's son Sir Gawain , which begets the vengeful seduction of King Lott's widow Morgause ... death at the hands especially of Sir Mordred , son of Morgause and King Arthur . Thus , not only does the Round ...
Contents
HEROIC ROMANCE | 3 |
TRAGICOMIC ROMANCE | 45 |
SOCIAL COMEDY | 83 |
Copyright | |
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