Dissertation Fellow 1999-2000
Terri Bays (Literature)
University of California at Los Angeles
Liturgical Inclusion in Late-Medieval
English Literature
My project examines the use of Christian liturgical material in
late-medieval English Literature. Because liturgy articulates a
dynamic relationship between the individual and the communion of
the faithful, medieval authors often use liturgical material as
an entree into discussions of both individual and corporate roles
within the institutional church. My study of these discussions has
three goals. First, I try to capture and convey a sense of the deep
emotional power expressed by the late-medieval English (Sarum) liturgy.
Second, I address the question of what effect that power can have
on a literary work, which includes liturgical material. Third, I
explore the variety of rhetorical purposes to which individual authors
put such inclusion, ultimately with an eye to what the authors have
to say about institutional structures.
Characteristic of my project is an alertness to extra-textual liturgical
allusions--literary borrowing of liturgical postures, pitches, pigments
and more. In addition, I keep an ear open for ways in which the
inclusion of liturgical material allows the literary voice to "talk
back," as it were, to its liturgical (and theological) parents.
In the course of my dissertation, I eavesdrop on conversations of
this sort in vernacular sermon cycles, in The Book of Margery
Kempe, in William Langland's Piers Plowman, and in
Geoffrey Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale.
|
