Life in Words

by Jill Mann

This volume collects fifteen landmark essays published over the last three decades by the distinguished medievalist Jill Mann. Bringing together her essays on Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, and Malory, the collection foregrounds the common interest in the semantic implications of key vocabulary such as "authority," "adventure," and "price" that links them together.Mann, one of the finest critics of Middle English literature in her generation, uses the concepts suggested by the language of medieval literature itself as a way into the masterpieces of Middle English, including The Canterbury Tales,...