In this book, Steele Nowlin examines the process of poetic invention as it is conceptualized and expressed in the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) and John Gower (ca. 1330-1408). Specifically, it examines how these two poets present invention as an affective force, a process characterized by emergence and potentiality, and one that has a corollary in affect-that is, a kind of force or sensation distinct from emotion, characterized as an "intensity" that precedes what is only later cognitively understood and expressed as feeling or emotion, and that is typically described in a critical...