Chaucer and Langland’s “Poor Widow”: Symbolism and Context

The article analyzes the image of a poor widow in the works of J. Chaucer and W. Langland. The works of both authors fell on the second half — the end of the fourteenth century, and in them, despite the difference in plots, themes and genres, both the general literary and religious context of the era and the current problems that worried contemporaries were reflected. Among such problems is poverty and attitudes towards it. In England, after the plague epidemic, during the socio-economic crisis, the number of beggars increased sharply, which required a rethinking of the usual ideas about charity; the uprising of 1381 and the situation preceding it, in particular the Statutes of Laborers, made the image of a patient poor person especially in demand. A needy widow becomes a symbol of weakness, honest poverty, which is worthy of help; and this image is of particular interest in the era when widows really begin to lose the economic independence inherent in them before the plague and turn into a socially unprotected group.

medieval literature, English literature, Chaucer, Langland, translation, commentary