Matthew Giancarlo: Parliament and Literature in Late Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 289. Cloth £ 50.00

Matthew Giancarlo’s Parliament and Literature studies the under-appreciated nexus of parliamentary and literary discourses between 1376 and 1414, a crucial stage in the development of parliament and English literature. The literary works (by Gower, Chaucer, and Langland), discussed in new historical fashion, raise important representational questions, notably, who can represent or speak “in the artistic and social communities” and “what can count as a community, a universitas, or as the community of communities” (15). Literature as a “form of public discussion, of parlement,” and parliament as “a form and forum for creative ‘literary’ expression,” call for an investigation of the interdependence of both discourses. Regarding the literary reflection of parliamentary discourse, parlement and parliament ultimately emerge as conceptual and structural frameworks for imaginative literature.

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