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Literary Criticism Medieval

Sacred and Profane in Chaucer and Late Medieval Literature

Essays in Honour of John V. Fleming

by (author) Robert Epstein & Will Robins

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2010
Category
Medieval, Medieval, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442640818
    Publish Date
    Oct 2010
    List Price
    $82.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442686106
    Publish Date
    Jan 2013
    List Price
    $81.00

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Description

Literary depictions of the sacred and the secular from the Middle Ages are representative of the era's widely held cultural understandings related to religion and the nature of lived experience. Using late Medieval English literature, including some of Chaucer's writings, these essays do not try to define a secular realm distinct and separate from the divine or religious, but instead analyze intersections of the sacred and the profane, suggesting that these two categories are mutually constitutive rather than antithetical.

With essays by former students of John V. Fleming, the collection pays tribute to the Princeton University professor emeritus through wide-ranging scholarship and literary criticism. Including reflections on depictions of Bathsheba, Troilus and Criseyde, the Legend of Good Women, Chaucer's Pardoner, and Margery Kempe, these essays focus on literature while ranging into history, philosophy, and the visual arts. Taken together, the work suggests that the domain of the sacred, as perceived in the Middle Ages, can variously be seen as having a hierarchical or a complementary relationship to the things of this world.

About the authors

Robert Epstein is an associate professor in the Department of English at Fairfield University.

Robert Epstein's profile page

William Robins is president of Victoria University and associate professor of English and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.

Will Robins' profile page