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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Reviews
"Ethics and Eventfulness is a bold and learned attempt to rethink the influence of Boethius s Consolation of Philosophy on the English Middle Ages by re-positioning medieval thinking about Lady Fortune in terms appropriate to current philosophical and rhetorical discourses. Mitchell s analysis demonstrates both breadth and intimacy with medieval texts and their intellectual contexts, as he deals with Chaucer, Gower, Usk, Lydgate, Malory, and the little-known Chaunce of the Dyse. His fine grasp of contemporary thought allows him to ptopose some surprising congruences with more current idioms, including theories of eventfulness and moral luck. All of this is presented in a lucid and engaging style." - Peggy A. Knapp, Professor of English at , Carnegie Mellon University
"J. Allan Mitchell aims to disrupt our usual understanding of ethics in late-medieval English literature. He links medieval and modern traditions of moral philosophy to recover a significant place for particularity, fortune, and contingency. Through this lens he offers new and challenging readings of agency and events in Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Malory. . . . His book shows not just the moral universe of medieval writers but what remains unresolved and irreducible within it." - Robert R. Edwards, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University
"Mitchell performs a series of brilliant analyses, informed by modern theory, across a range of medieval literarytexts both well known and less familiar. In the process he develops a radical case for rehabilitating fortune as a force to be reckoned with: a positive concept that articulates ethical problems arising from the contingent, the temporal, and the event. This book is essential reading on the topic of fortune in the Mmiddle Aages." - Peter Brown, Professor of English, University of Kent
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Ethics and Eventfulness in Middle English Literature
Authors: J. Allan Mitchell
Series Title: The New Middle Ages
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230620728
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: J. Allan Mitchell 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4039-7442-6Published: 19 May 2009
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-53504-0Published: 19 May 2009
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-62072-8Published: 27 April 2009
Series ISSN: 2945-5936
Series E-ISSN: 2945-5944
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 187
Topics: Medieval Literature, Literary Theory