Confession and Resistance: Defining the Self in Late Medieval England - Softcover

Little, Katherine C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0268033765 ISBN 13: 9780268033767

Verlag: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

In Confession and Resistance, Katherine C. Little cautions that medieval selfhood should not be understood merely in terms of confessional practice. She points to the controversy over confession and, more generally, lay instruction that was generated in late medieval England around the heresy known as Wycliffism (or Lollardy). This controversy, she maintains, reveals the contested nature of the language of medieval selfhood.

Through her readings of Wycliffite sermons and polemical writings, Little argues that the Lollard resistance to confession should be understood as a debate over self-formation. For the Wycliffites, traditional confessional language had failed in its expected function—to define the self and to reveal the interior—and had to be replaced with new terms and new stories taken from the Bible. This new view of Wycliffism, as a crisis in the language of selfhood, allows the author to reevaluate the impact of Wycliffite ideas in Chaucer's Parson's Tale, Gower's Confessio Amantis, and Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes. Little finds in these texts, all of which include confession as a theme, a similar concern with the inadequacy of the traditional confessional mode.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Katherine C. Little is assistant professor of English at Fordham University.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Notre Dame Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0268033765
• ISBN 13: 9780268033767
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 206
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: University of Notre Dame Press; https://www.nd.edu/; ; Office of General Counsel 204 Main Building; Notre Dame; IN; 46556; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar