Abstract: Abstract Chapter 2 argues that Middle English romance underwent changes in the later Middle Ages—changes offering resolutions to the gentry’s socioeconomic dilemmas. This chapter examines nine romances, each of which was written during the period 1350–1450, the very period when the gentry emerged and when manuscripts began to be compiled in the households of the gentry. The author identifies five particular motifs that were new to texts from this period, each of which would have appealed to the gentry in one of two ways: some of them offer resolutions to ideological impasses faced by the gentry; others turn the traditional knights of romance into gentry landowners, thereby inviting such readers to identify with these literary protagonists.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-06-19
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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