Images of the Medieval Peasant.
- Author/Editor
- Freedman, Paul.
- Title
- Images of the Medieval Peasant.
- Published
- Freedman, Paul. Images of the Medieval Peasant. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
- Review
- Freedman's use of Gower is--per usual with historians until very recently--exclusive to Book I of the "Vox Clamantis," the "Visio Anglie," with two brief excursions into the "Mirour de l'Omme," and functions as support for claims about abuse of the peasantry by the elite classes. A sample: "The most sustained hysterical attack on rebellious peasants, likening them to animals, is book I of John Gower's 'Vox clamantis,' in which the rabble takes on the aspect either of domestic beasts that have escaped control (asses, oxen, swine, dogs) or of wild or verminous creatures (foxes, flies, frogs). At the end of book I, with the suppression of the revolt, the peasants have become draught animals, oxen, who have returned to the yoke after a terrifying episode in which they left the fields, forgot their nature, and turned into lions, panthers, and bears" (142-43). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]
- Date
- 1999
- Gower Subjects
- Backgrounds and General Criticism