The Pilgrim and the Book

Julia Bolton Holloway's "The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland and Chaucer" investigates major fourteenth-century texts, the "Commedia, Piers Plowman" and "The Canterbury Tales," in the light of the medieval theory and practice of pilgrimage, especially concentrating on Emmaus and Exodus paradigms. Holloway's analysis draws extensively on iconography, musicology, typology and anthropology. The concluding chapter explains why each poet places himself within his poem - in his own image - as a pilgrim.