Middle English Debate Poetry PDF Download

Abstract: My dissertation investigates the cultural significance of vernacular debate poems from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. Debate poems were hugely popular in late medieval England; dozens survive, often in multiple copies, and authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Dunbar contributed to the genre. The disputants in these poems - birds, corpses, worms, and occasionally humans - argue about seemingly frivolous topics to no clear end, for the debates are never resolved. Debate poems are not empty rhetorical games, however, but fascinating literary and historical documents: they address, and often voice strong opinions on, issues of vital interest not only to medieval audiences but also to modern critics. After an introductory chapter that briefly traces the evolution and criticism of the debate genre, my dissertation focuses on three recurring themes in debate poetry: law, gender and eschatology. Chapter two focuses on the legal ramifications of three debate poems, The Owl and the Nightingale, Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, and The Assembly of Ladies, contending that the irresolution of these debate poems mimics the slow pace of the law courts, and that the poems comment on the delays endemic in the English legal system. Chapter three shows that debates between the body and soul, far from being the straightforward vehicles for conveying moral lessons they are generally assumed to be, are, in fact, explorations of human identity that grapple with fears and uncertainties about the afterlife. My fourth chapter argues that characters engaged in debates purporting to be about the vices and virtues of women generally agree on the nature of women but disagree about how their sexual behavior affects men's reputations. I contend that these debates represent ideas about masculinity and social control. Ultimately, my dissertation both reassesses the debate genre and shows the diversity of opinions that could circulate around these three issues, enriching our understanding of late medieval culture in England.