Signes and Sothe – Language in the Piers Plowman Tradition (Piers Plowman Studies) - Hardcover

Barr, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0859914194 ISBN 13: 9780859914192

Publisher: D. S. Brewer, 1994

Synopsis

Signes and Sothe examines the literary and historical tradition of poetry inspired by Piers Plowman. It explores the relationships of Richard the Redeless, The Crowned King, Pierce the Ploughman's Crede and Mum and the Sothsegger to each other, and to Piers. The book is based on the premise that language is a social phenomenon, drawing on a number of critical approaches from modern linguistics, theories of discourse, manuscript annotation and medieval conceptions of authorship and intention. It considers concepts of literary style and poetic diction in relation to the offical discourses of Church and State, and analyses the linguistic positions of the poems, revealing their historical and political significance. The social implications of compositional method are also examined in chapters on the use of wordplay and the employment of distinctive diction, legal and Wycliffite. As in Piers Plowman, the use and function of language is an important concern in these poems, and this study demonstrates how it is expressly related to their mission to criticize excesses and corruption in society.
HELEN BARR is a Fellow and Tutor in English and Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.

About this title

Review:

Full of interest on, and a powerful stimulus to interest in, texts which Barr has made it inexcusable now to neglect. MEDIUM AEVUM Explores how these highly political poems relate with each other and with the poem that inspired them... her findings will likely long dominate discussion of these poems... Penetrating discussion of the individual texts. STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCERA fine volume in this impressive series. ANGLIA

About this edition

• Publisher: D. S. Brewer
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0859914194
• ISBN 13: 9780859914192
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208