English Language and Literature Commons^™

Gay Habits Set Strait: Fan Culture And Authoritative Praxis In Ready Player One, Kevin Moberly, Brent Moberly

English Faculty Publications

(First Paragraph) Gwendolyn Morgan reminds us that medievalism and authority are complementary fictions.¹ Recognizing that the "past with which we identify actually reflects our present needs," she examines the way that contemporary writers establish the authority of their works by adapting, if not explicitly fabricating medieval sources.² The result, she argues, is a kind of "double practice of medievalism," one that invokes the authoritative power of the Middle Ages by appropriating the medieval appeal to auctoritee, which is to say the pretense of "citing real and invented classical authorities" to both disguise and justify authorial invention.³ Morgan …

Introduction To Innovative Approaches To Teaching Chaucer, Alison (Ganze) Langdon, David Sprunger

English Faculty Publications

Many a medievalist has been seduced by Chaucer. Perhaps it’s the totality of Chaucer’s enduring characters, memorable tales, elusive narrator, and fragmented whole that keeps us coming back. We are fascinated and delighted, too, by his linguistic play and the lyrical cadence of Middle English. Chaucer may have led us to graduate study in the first place and remains a treat that organizes our pedagogical lives. For some who teach in smaller programs or two-year colleges, Chaucer’s canonical status may provide the only guaranteed place for medieval texts in the curriculum and thus represents one small chance to share our …

Student-Centered, Interactive Teaching Of The Anglo-Saxon Cult Of The Cross, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

Although most Anglo-Saxonists deal with Old English texts and contexts as a matter of course in our research agendas, many of us teach relatively few specialized courses focused on our areas of expertise to highly-trained students; thus, many Old English texts and objects which are commonplace in our research lives can seem arcane and esoteric to a great many of our students. This article proposes to confront this gap, to suggest some ways of teaching a few potentially obscure texts and artifacts to undergrads, to offer some guidance about uses of technology in this endeavor, and to help fellow teachers …

Social Healing In Gower's Visio Angliae, Kara Mcshane

English Faculty Publications

I argue that Gower uses metaphorical images common from vernacular romance—particularly the image of the rudderless ship—to help himself and his readers process the upheaval of the Great Rising. As a healing narrative, the Visio is meant as a public, political text that can begin healing at both personal and communal levels. The Visio is reforming, but it is not radical. In Gower’s worldview, social reform must begin with the highest levels of society and move downward.

Introduction: John Gower's Twenty-First Century Appeal, Kara Mcshane, R. F. Yeager

English Faculty Publications

This is the introductory essay to a special issue of the South Atlantic Review focusing on John Gower. Guest editor for this issue is Kara L. McShane with the assistance of R. F. Yeager.

The Medieval Dark Horse: Challenge And Reward In The Middle English Lyric, Andrew S. Marvin

English Faculty Publications

“The Medieval Dark Horse: Challenge and Reward in the Middle English Lyric” explores the genre’s history and literary merits while addressing the question of why this valuable and extensive body of literature has largely gone untapped by scholars.

The introductory sections detail the historical and modern contexts of the lyric, including the state of scholarship, manuscripts, editions, dating issues, purpose, audience, types of lyrics, and themes. This background informs a discussion of the genre’s difficulties and offers solutions with which to counter them. Close readings of eight poems are included to exemplify the lyric’s thematic range, stylistic diversity, and literary …

"My Trouthe For To Holde-Allas, Allas!": Dorigen And Honor In The Franklin's Tale, Alison Ganze

English Faculty Publications

Though others have explored in detail the deep and abiding concern with honor Arveragus and Aurelius evince in the tale, Dorigen’s own preoccupation with honor—no less significant in the tale’s exposition of trouthe—has not received much critical attention. Indeed, the question of Dorigen’s honor is often preempted by analysis of the (masculine) chivalric code of honor, which subsumes female honor within it. Yet an analysis of Dorigen’s promise to Aurelius and of her despairing complaint will reveal that she, too, participates in the same concept of trouthe that binds her male counterparts, one that privileges trouthe not simply as honor …

Productive Destruction: Torture, Text, And The Body In The Old English 'Andreas', Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

Writing in the Old English Andreas is at once both a productive and a destructive activity. We first become aware of the dangerous power of the written word quite early in the poem, when we learn that the Mermedonians have subverted the normally productive activity of writing into a tool for calculating the execution dates of their prisoners (134-37). Later, the words uttered by the devil to incite the Mermedonians against Andreas illuminate the lexical relationship between the destructive nature of writing and the productive nature of torture in the semiotic context of the poem. Finally, in a sort of …