Signes and sothe : language in the Piers Plowman tradition
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Signes and sothe : language in the Piers Plowman tradition
(Piers Plowman studies, 10)
D.S. Brewer, 1994
Available at 12 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
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  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
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  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
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  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. 172-181
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
An exploration through language of the literary, historical and social tradition of poetry inspired by Piers Plowman.
Signes and Sothe examines the literary and historical tradition of poetry inspired by Piers Plowman. It explores the relationships of Richard the Redeless, The Crowned King, Pierce the Ploughman's Crede and Mum and the Sothsegger to each other, and to Piers. The book is based on the premise that language is a social phenomenon, drawing on a number of critical approaches from modern linguistics, theories of discourse, manuscript annotation and medieval conceptions of authorship and intention. It considers concepts of literary style and poetic diction in relation to the offical discourses of Church and State, and analyses the linguistic positions of the poems, revealing their historical and political significance. The social implications of compositional method are also examined in chapters on the use of wordplay and the employment of distinctive diction, legaland Wycliffite. As in Piers Plowman, the use and function of language is an important concern in these poems, and this study demonstrates how it is expressly related to their mission to criticize excesses and corruption insociety.
HELEN BARR is a Fellow and Tutor in English and Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.
Table of Contents
- Locating tradition
- reading tradition
- Signes and Sothe
- "signes of the times" - contesting Sothe
- legal fictions
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