ICMS 2025: Exploring Complaint in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period - Traditions and Transformations of Complaint
Complaint is as easy to identify in medieval and early modern literature as it is challenging to define. One need not look far in premodern literature to find a figure railing against Fortune, a forsaken woman grieving her loss, or a character critiquing the injustices of society in mournful, sometimes bitter, tones. A polymorphous literary form, complaint can function as satire, prayer, and elegy; yet it is also a distinct form, sometimes described as a mode or a genre.Though complaint is inextricably linked to grief, the role it plays in grief management has been shown to vary greatly, sometimes working to temper or mobilize a character’s grief and at other times paradoxically multiplying it.