{"product_id":"forms-of-suffering","title":"Forms of Suffering","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eForms of Suffering\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e demonstrates how Geoffrey Chaucer transformed pity into a central ethical and aesthetic concern in English literature by tracing his reformulations of trans-European pity discourses for an English audience.\u003c\/b\u003e In these reformulations, Chaucer brought to the fore the modes and effects of pity's work in challenging, even overturning, traditional power structures such as social status, gender, and race. Critically, his consideration of pity also explores its precarity: the ways that pity could easily slide from transformative justice into a weapon of unjust oppression.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJessica Hines describes how Chaucer's writing was formative in shaping an English pity discourse increasingly critical of the sociopolitical capacity of pity to act as a tool for challenging injustice and reforming oppressive social structures. \u003ci\u003eForms of Suffering\u003c\/i\u003e makes clear the profound appeal of pity's ability to challenge structures of power in Chaucer's writing, as well as the ways that pity itself could be – and was being – manipulated by the powerful for their own ends.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57504847561077,"sku":"9781501789182","price":116.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781501789182.jpg?v=1786953765","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/forms-of-suffering","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}