Ethics and Exemplary Narrative in Chaucer and Gower
Regular price
€92.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=J. Allan Mitchell
Author_J. Allan Mitchell
Category=DSBB
Category=DSC
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Ethical Pragmatism
Exemplary Rhetoric
Medieval Writers
Normative Ethics
Product details
- ISBN 9781843840190
- Weight: 416g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 14 Oct 2004
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
A lively defence of the ethics of exemplary narrative, and a detailed account of its forms and functioning in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower.
Why do medieval writers routinely make use of exemplary rhetoric? How does it work, and what are its ethical and poetical values? And if Chaucer and Gower must be seen as vigorously subverting it, then why do they persist in using it? Borrowing from recent developments in ethical criticism and theory, this book addresses such questions by reconstructing a late medieval rationale for the ethics of exemplary narrative. The author argues that Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Gower's Confessio Amantis attest to the vitality of a narrative - rather than strictly normative - ethics that has roots in premodern traditions of practical reason and rhetoric. Chaucer and Gower are shown to be inheritors and respecters of an early and unexpected form of ethical pragmatism - which has profound implications for the orthodox history of ethics in the West.
Recipient of the 2008 John H. Fisher Award forsignificant contribution to the field of Gower Studies.
Dr J. ALLAN MITCHELL teaches in the Department of English, University of Victoria.
Dr J ALLAN MITCHELL is Lecturer in Medieval Literature, University of Kent, Canterbury.
