ENGL 431 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Middle Ages
Document Summary
Shakespeare"s "a lover"s complaint" and early modern criminal. Author believes that is has been overlooked and undervalued: believes that people have been frustrated by the syntax. Scholars argue whether it was written by shakespeare or wasn"t: believes that shakespeare did write the poem. But modern readings ignore the variety and conditions of the early modern complaint. Essay disagrees with the association between complaints and the court culture: argues instead that the mode of confession is evident in popular complaints. Shakespeare is experimenting with a male-written but female-voiced poem: connected to the unruliness of the female confession. Our view on gender is understood from our readings of the complaint: the female voice versus the ventriloquized female voice. Both shakespeare"s sonnets and a lover"s complaint are interested in confessional testimony: talks about confession in a legal context, such as a public spectacle of contrition.
