Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Counsel and Strategy in Middle English Romance

Counsel and Strategy in Middle English Romance

Barnes, Geraldine

Hardcover

Literary CriticismFiction AnthologiesGeneral Poetry

ISBN10: 0859913627
ISBN13: 9780859913621
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: Mar 4 1993
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.95
Height: 0.44 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Barnes contends that rule by counsel' is central to the ethos of Middle English romance.

By examining the development of Middle English romance against its background of 13th- and 14th-century royal-baronial conflict, this book assumes a new historical perspective. Friction between Plantagenet kings and dissident barons contributed to the development of the problem of counsel' both as an actuality and as a topos in the literature of the period. Rule by counsel, an ideal which informs medieval English government at every level, is, the authorargues, central to the ethos of Middle English romance.

The procedural formula of counsel and strategy' is tested against a number of romances: Ywain and Gawain, Havelok, Gamelyn, Athelston, a selection of nine romances from the Auchinleck manuscript, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. By selecting these narratives Geraldine Barnes is able to approach the question of counsel from a number of different angles. This is a book which will stimulate considerable interest among scholars of medieval literature.

GERALDINE BARNES is Senior Lecturer in English Language and Early English Literature at the University of Sydney.

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