Literary Character
The Human Figure in Early English Writing
Published on 12. August 2003
Book
Hardback
280 pages
978-0-8014-4116-5 (ISBN)
Description
Chaucer introduces the characters of the Knight and the Prioress in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Beginning with these familiar figures, Elizabeth Fowler develops a new method of analyzing literary character. She argues that words generate human figures in our reading minds by reference to paradigmatic cultural models of the person. These models-such as the pilgrim, the conqueror, the maid, the narrator-originate in a variety of cultural spheres. A concept Fowler terms the "social person" is the key to understanding both the literary details of specific characterizations and their indebtedness to history and culture.Drawing on central texts of medieval and early modern England, Fowler demonstrates that literary characters are created by assembling social persons from throughout culture. Her perspective allows her to offer strikingly original readings of works by Chaucer, Langland, Skelton, and Spenser, and to reformulate and resolve several classic interpretive problems. In so doing, she reframes accepted notions of the process and the consequences of reading.Developing insights from law, theology, economic thought, and political philosophy, Fowler's book replaces the traditional view of characters as autonomous individuals with an interpretive approach in which each character is seen as a battle of many archetypes. According to Fowler, the social person provides the template that enables authors to portray, and readers to recognize, the highly complex human figures that literature requires.
Reviews / Votes
Fowler (Univ. of Virginia) explores the workings of 'social persons' in four texts: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman, John Skelton's The Tunnying of Elynour Rummynge, and Spenser's Faerie Queene.... Fowler has striking and pertinent observations about each of her authors. She is at her best when demonstrating how a poet crosscuts one kind of language with another to generate social critique.... The many sharp insights, along with the rich quoted matter and annotation throughout, make Fowler's a volume that will reward those pursuing the study of English Medieval and Renaissance literature. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.(Choice) I was firmly impressed by the strenght of Fowler's method. Her analysis often leads her from literary criticism to philosophy, theology, economics, history, and law; she says that her license to do this stems from her 'interest in following questions when they lead out of their usual sphere of business'.... Chaucer, Langland, Skelton, and Spenser were all certainly concerned not only with literary character, but also with the social concerns of their periods. Using Fowler's method offers us a new, refreshing way to go about discovering for ourselves what those concerns were, how they were changing, and how these authors utilized the tools of poetry to create literary characters built upon them.
- Liam Felsen, Indiana University Southeast (Comitatus) The range of material Fowler brings to bear on her analyses is vast and impressive-from civil and canon law, political philosophy, theology and philosophy, economics, history, and of course medieval and early modern literature.... The multi-disciplinary richness and subtle versatility of her theory proves itself in readings that are fresh, surprising, provocative, and frequently dazlling-across a range of characters as different from one another in literary depth and texture as they can be.... One does not have to agree with every detail of every reading to feel that what she is doing is right-and important.
- Seherron E. Knopp, Williams College (Meduin Aevum)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paper over boards
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8014-4116-5 (9780801441165)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2018
1st Edition
Cornell University Press
€162.99
Available for download
Person
Elizabeth Fowler is Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. She is coeditor of The Project of Prose in Early Modern Europe and the New World, and is a general editor of the forthcoming Works of Edmund Spenser.