Love and Virtue in Middle English and Middle Scots Poetry

The book provides the first comprehensive study of love and ethics in late medieval poems written by Geoffrey Chaucer, James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas. It shows how the ideas on love, virtue, and human well-being were disseminated between England and Scotland and adjusted to meet cultural changes.

The book provides the first comprehensive study of love and ethics in Middle English and Middle Scots poems written at the close of the Middle Ages by Geoffrey Chaucer, James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas. It shows that medieval poems often reveal a pattern in which an individual moves from selfish to selfless concerns, and how this movement is incited by love, while fulfilled through virtue. By taking into account the English and Scottish cultural contexts, as well as other traditions of writing, the book shows how the ideas on human well-being were disseminated and adjusted to meet cultural changes. In this, the book contributes to a discussion on what constitutes mindful or virtuous living, a discussion that is as relevant today as it was in the Middle Ages.

Autorentext

Dominika Ruszkiewicz is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków. Her main field of study is Middle English and Middle Scots poetry, with a particular focus on Geoffrey Chaucer, James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas.

Inhalt
Love and Moral Perfection Love and Reason. The Romaunt of the Rose, The Goldyn Targe Love and Necessity. Chaucer's Boethian Poems, The Kingis Quair Love and Honor. The House of Fame, The Palis of Honoure Love and the Common Good. The Parliament of Fowls, The Thrissill and the Rois The Virtue of Love. Troilus and Criseyde, The Testament of Cresseid