The Gawain-Poet and the Fourteenth-Century English Anticlerical Tradition

Ethan Campbell argues that a central feature of the Gawain-poet's Middle English works' moral rhetoric is anticlerical critique. Written in an era when clerical corruption was a key concern for polemicists such as Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif, as well as satirical poets such as John Gower, William Langland, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the Gawain poems feature an explicit attack on hypocritical priests in the opening lines of Cleanness as well as more subtle critiques embedded within depictions of flawed priest-like characters.



Ethan Campbell is Associate Professor of English & Literature and Coordinator of the English Major at The King's College in New York City.



1. Introduction: The Sullied Sacrament 2. The Textual Environment of Fourteenth-Century English Anticlericalism 3. The Anticlerical Poetics of Cleanness 4. The Reluctant Priest of Patience 5. The Late-Arriving Priest of Pearl 6. The Devilish Priest of Sir Gawain