In this book Steele Nowlin examines the process of poetic invention as it is conceptualized and expressed in the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer 13431400 and John Gower ca. 13301408. 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 affectthat 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 vocabulary of movement emergence and becoming. ampampnbsp Chaucer Gower and the Affect of Invention thus formulates a definition of affect that differs from most work in the recent turn to affect in medieval studies focusing not on the representation of emotion or desire or efforts to engage medieval alterity but on the movement and emergence that precede emotional experience. It likewise argues for a broader understanding of invention in late medieval literature beyond analyses of rhetorical poetics and authorial politics by recuperating the dynamism and sense of potential that characterize inventional activity. Finally its close readings of Chaucers and Gowers poetry provide new insights into how these poets represent invention in order to engage the pervasive social and cultural discourses their poetry addresses. ampampnbsp