The Order of Complaint: A Study in Medieval Tradition.
- Author/Editor
- Prasad, Prajapati.
- Title
- The Order of Complaint: A Study in Medieval Tradition.
- Published
- Prasad, Prajapati. "The Order of Complaint: A Study in Medieval Tradition." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dissertation Abstracts 26.7 (1966): 3930. [eJGN 44.1]
- Review
- Prasad discusses the "nature of complaint" in late-medieval rhetoric, and maintains that "in medieval English poetry . . . complaint is used in two ways: first, it is inserted within a poem as a little oration[;] second, it is also used as a self-sufficient theme for composing a poem." The study identifies "three distinct lines of medieval English verse complaints": "social complaints" (distinct from verse satires), love complaints, and complaints which "mingl[e] . . . various forms of complaint," assessing the "Confessio Amantis" as an example of the latter, with a "point of view [that] is uncertain." When we view CA in light of "medieval English poetry" rather than the "French tradition," we can see that "Gower is the pioneer of the type of the mixed-form of the art, which, later developed as tragi-comedy."
- Date
- 1966
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
Influence and Later Allusion