Hyperion and the hobbyhorse
Subtitle: studies in carnivalesque subversion
By: Arthur Lindley.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Newark, Del; London; Cranbury, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 197
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.; Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400 -- Characters -- Wife of Bath.; Marlowe, Christopher 1564-1593 -- Characters -- Heroes.; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.; Gawain and the Grene Knight.; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism.; Social problems in literature.; English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- History and criticism.; Literature and society -- England -- History.; Wife of Bath (Fictitious character); Social norms in literature.; Dissenters in literature.; Carnival in literature.; Revenge in literature.
Description: This book constructs a paradigm for the operation of subversive comedy - what Arthur Lindley, the author, calls the Augustinian carnivalesque - by examining some of the major texts of Ricardian and Elizabethan literature.

By identifying some common characteristics of these works, Lindley argues that they must be seen in terms of a continuous, fundamentally Augustinian, Christian culture that is marked by a pervasive anti-heroic comedy that interrogates the official secular order and the role-based social identities that comprise it. Underlying this is a common attitude of Christian skepticism and a common use of carnivalesque demystification of power.

In this pattern of continuity, concern with subjectivity, the mysteries of the self, and the tension between inward consciousness and outward role long antedates, say, Hamlet. Subjection, in other words, is not an Elizabethan (or Shakespearean) invention, but a constant concern of Augustinian literature going back to Confessions.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 182-193) and index.