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1882
Volume 30, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 0890-2917
  • E-ISSN: 2031-0242

Abstract

Abstract

This essay offers a reading of Piers that centres on the poem’s famous and muchstudied repetition of . Rather than construing that repetition as simply repetition, the essay suggests that we think of that repetition as a poetic refrain in the poem. In making this suggestion, the essay also synthesizes and contributes to the extant body of theories of refrain - both in contemporary and medieval contexts. Encountering as a refrain fosters a non-linear and non-argumentative orientation toward the poem’s deeply-graven commitment to economic justice.

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2016-01-01
2025-12-05

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