Description
Book SynopsisEthan Campbell argues that a central feature of the
Gawain-poet's Middle English works' moral rhetoric is anticlerical critique. Written in an era when clerical corruption was a key concern for polemicists such as Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif, as well as satirical poets such as John Gower, William Langland, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the
Gawain poems feature an explicit attack on hypocritical priests in the opening lines of
Cleanness as well as more subtle critiques embedded within depictions of flawed priest-like characters.
Table of Contents1. Introduction: The Sullied Sacrament 2. The Textual Environment of Fourteenth-Century English Anticlericalism 3. The Anticlerical Poetics of
Cleanness 4. The Reluctant Priest of
Patience 5. The Late-Arriving Priest of
Pearl 6. The Devilish Priest of
Sir Gawain
