What to Choose: “Alas, quid eligam ignoro” and Professional Anxiety in Middle English Literature

IF 0.2 3区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
George Shuffelton
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract:The rarely discussed Middle English poem “Alas, quid eligam ignoro” might be read as an estates satire, but it takes the form of a complaint. Two young men (a clerk and a layman) describe their seeming paralysis in the face of an impossible choice. In contrast to the usual strategy of estates satire, the poem does not view the moral failures of the professions from some kind of objective distance but from the bottom-up perspective of two individuals who see choice as a kind of foreclosure or hopeless compromise. The crisis of “Alas, quid eligam ignoro” resembles similar crises faced by Will in William Langland’s Piers Plowman and by the speaker of a fragmentary poem known as “Why I Can’t Be a Nun.” In contrast to prevailing views of professional identity as a natural, inescapable destiny, these texts suggest that finding a profession might involve anxious introspection and that this search might be obstructed at every turn.
选什么:中古英语文学中的“唉,我不懂”与职业焦虑
摘要:中古英语诗歌《唉,魁德·利格兰·无知者》(唉,魁德·利格兰·无知者)虽可理解为对社会的讽刺,但其表现形式却是一种抱怨。两个年轻人(一个是职员,一个是门外汉)描述了他们在面对一个不可能的选择时似乎束手无策。与地产讽刺的通常策略相反,这首诗没有从某种客观的距离来看职业的道德失败,而是从两个自下而上的角度来看,他们把选择看作是一种丧失抵押品赎回权或无望的妥协。“唉,我不知道”的危机类似于威廉·朗兰(William Langland)的《农夫皮尔斯》(Piers Plowman)中的威尔(Will)所面临的危机,以及一首支离破碎的诗《为什么我不能成为修女》(Why I Can Be a Nun)的作者所面临的危机。与普遍认为职业身份是一种自然的、不可避免的命运的观点相反,这些文本表明,寻找职业可能涉及焦虑的内省,而且这种寻找可能处处受阻。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
20
期刊介绍: Founded in 1903, Studies in Philology addresses scholars in a wide range of disciplines, though traditionally its strength has been English Medieval and Renaissance studies. SIP publishes articles on British literature before 1900 and on relations between British literature and works in the Classical, Romance, and Germanic Languages.
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