Chaucer's Narrators

Chaucer's Narrators PDF Author: David Lawton
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859912175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book begins with a brief prefatory discussion of its relation to structuralist and post-structuralist criticism. The first chapter, `Apocryphal Voices', surveys the basis of modern critical approaches to persona and `irony' in Chaucer's poetry, and suggests that such approaches are better suited to unequivocally written contexts. A systematic hesitation between a wholly written and a wholly spoken context requires critical distinctions between types of persona, and a number of distinctions in the range between persona and voice. `Morality in its Context' examines the Pardoner and his tale and argues against a `dramatic' view of the tale itself, while the third chapter, 'Chaucer's Development of Persona', is a study of possible sources for Chaucer's handling of the narratorial '1', looking at the English `disour', the French `dits amoureux', Italian and Latin sources of influence, and the Roman de la Rose. The last two chapters apply the principles outlined so far to Troilus and The Canterbury Tales, with a particular examination of the literary history of the Squire'stale to show that modern interest in dramatic persona has obscured many other important issues and leads to drastic misreading. This is a challenging and lucid work which questions many of the received attitudes of recentChaucer criticism, and offers a reasoned and approachable alternative view.

Chaucer's Narrators

Chaucer's Narrators PDF Author: David Lawton
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859912175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book begins with a brief prefatory discussion of its relation to structuralist and post-structuralist criticism. The first chapter, `Apocryphal Voices', surveys the basis of modern critical approaches to persona and `irony' in Chaucer's poetry, and suggests that such approaches are better suited to unequivocally written contexts. A systematic hesitation between a wholly written and a wholly spoken context requires critical distinctions between types of persona, and a number of distinctions in the range between persona and voice. `Morality in its Context' examines the Pardoner and his tale and argues against a `dramatic' view of the tale itself, while the third chapter, 'Chaucer's Development of Persona', is a study of possible sources for Chaucer's handling of the narratorial '1', looking at the English `disour', the French `dits amoureux', Italian and Latin sources of influence, and the Roman de la Rose. The last two chapters apply the principles outlined so far to Troilus and The Canterbury Tales, with a particular examination of the literary history of the Squire'stale to show that modern interest in dramatic persona has obscured many other important issues and leads to drastic misreading. This is a challenging and lucid work which questions many of the received attitudes of recentChaucer criticism, and offers a reasoned and approachable alternative view.

Chaucer's Narrators and the Rhetoric of Self-representation

Chaucer's Narrators and the Rhetoric of Self-representation PDF Author: Michael Foster
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039111213
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
Methods of representing individual voices were a primary concern for Geoffrey Chaucer. While many studies have focused on how he expresses the voices of his characters, especially in The Canterbury Tales, a sustained analysis of how he represents his own voice is still wanting. This book explores how Chaucer's first-person narrators are devices of self-representation that serve to influence representations of the poet. Drawing from recent developments in narratology, the history of reading, and theories of orality, this book considers how Chaucer adapts various rhetorical strategies throughout his poetry and prose to define himself and his audience in relation to past literary traditions and contemporary culture. The result is an understanding of how Chaucer anticipates, addresses, and influences his audience's perceptions of himself that broadens our appreciation of Chaucer as a master rhetorician.

The Book of the Duchess

The Book of the Duchess PDF Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 50

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Book of the Duchess is a surreal poem that was presumably written as an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster's (the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer's patron, the royal Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt) death in 1368 or 1369. The poem was written a few years after the event and is widely regarded as flattering to both the Duke and the Duchess. It has 1334 lines and is written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets.

Chaucer's Scribes

Chaucer's Scribes PDF Author: Lawrence Warner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108640990
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
The 2004 announcement that Chaucer's scribe had been discovered resulted in a paradigm shift in medieval studies. Adam Pynkhurst dominated the classroom, became a fictional character, and led to suggestions that this identification should prompt the abandonment of our understanding of the development of London English and acceptance that the clerks of the Guildhall were promoting vernacular literature as part of a concerted political program. In this meticulously researched study, Lawrence Warner challenges the narratives and conclusions of recent scholarship. In place of the accepted story, Warner provides a fresh, more nuanced one in which many more scribes, anonymous ones, worked in conditions we are only beginning to understand. Bringing to light new information, not least, hundreds of documents in the hand of one of the most important fifteenth-century scribes of Chaucer and Langland, this book represents an important intervention in the field of Middle English studies.

Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales PDF Author: Caroline D. Eckhardt
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802025920
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 520

Get Book Here

Book Description
This annotated, international bibliography of twentieth-century criticism on the Prologue is an essential reference guide. It includes books, journal articles, and dissertations, and a descriptive list of twentieth-century editions; it is the most complete inventory of modern criticism on the Prologue.

Writing After Chaucer

Writing After Chaucer PDF Author: Daniel Pinti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317944992
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume makes available to teachers, students, and scholars a convenient selection of the most provocative and influential articles from the past 20 years on Chaucer's afterlife in the 15th century, one of the most dynamic topics in Chaucer studies today. Much recent work in the field of Chaucer studies has shown how our understanding of Chaucer's poetry is mediated by his 15th-century readers and scribes. Increased scholarly interest in various 15th-century Chaucerian poets-notably Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Henryson-has prompted medievalists to read these sometimes neglected poems anew The classic essays in this volume, plus two written just for this collection, investigate the scribes, glossators, and poets whose reception and transmission of Chaucer's writings influence our own reading of them today, focusing chiefly on the Chaucerian influence in their poetry. Written by eminent Chaucer scholars, these essays cover not only a wide range of Chaucer's writings, but also touch on the history of the English language, the glosses to Chaucer's poetry, English and Scottish poets' appropriations of Chaucer, the implicit criticism and interpretations of Chaucer's writings in the 15th century, and the first printing of Chaucer's works by William Caxton Timely and unique, this collection will prove indispensable for research libraries, a convenient and valuable resource for scholars, and an essential introduction for students.

Chaucer and the Poets

Chaucer and the Poets PDF Author: Winthrop Wetherbee
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501707094
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this sensitive reading of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Winthrop Wetherbee redefines the nature of Chaucer’s poetic vision. Using as a starting point Chaucer’s profound admiration for the achievement of Dante and the classical poets, Wetherbee sees the Troilus as much more than a courtly treatment of an event in ancient history—it is, he asserts, a major statement about the poetic tradition from which it emerges. Wetherbee demonstrates the evolution of the poet-narrator of the Troilus, who begins as a poet of romance, bound by the characters’ limited worldview, but who in the end becomes a poet capable of realizing the tragic and ultimately the spiritual implications of his story.

Chaucer's Dream Poetry

Chaucer's Dream Poetry PDF Author: Helen Phillips
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317900464
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dream literature is regarded as one of the most important genres in medieval literature and is widely studied. This text provides a succinct and clear introduction to the five central poems that comprise Chaucer's Dream Poetry, and shows his role as a leading adapter of European Literary tradition into English Literature. The poems discussed are The Book of the Duchess, The Legend of Good Women, The Legend of Dido, The Parliament of Fowls and The House of Fame. Each have an introduction setting the poem within the context of Dream Poetry and Chaucer's own work. Appendices of proper names, pronunciation and criticism are also given. This volume is unique is presenting the poems together in an editorial and critical framework. The quality of annotation is unrivalled and will make this text a major addition to the literature suitable for those interested in the genre, literary, or more general history of the period.

Constructing Chaucer

Constructing Chaucer PDF Author: G. Gust
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230621619
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the scholarly construction of Geoffrey Chaucer in different historical eras, and challenges long-standing assumptions to enhance the theoretical dialogue on Chaucer's historical reception.

Chaucer and His Readers

Chaucer and His Readers PDF Author: Seth Lerer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691029237
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
Challenging the view that the fifteenth century was the "Drab Age" of English literary history, Seth Lerer seeks to recover the late-medieval literary system that defined the canon of Chaucer's work and the canonical approaches to its understanding. Lerer shows how the poets, scribes, and printers of the period constructed Chaucer as the "poet laureate" and "father" of English verse. Chaucer appears throughout the fifteenth century as an adviser to kings and master of technique, and Lerer reveals the patterns of subjection, childishness, and inability that characterize the stance of Chaucer's imitators and his readers. In figures from the Canterbury Tales such as the abused Clerk, the boyish Squire, and the infantilized narrator of the "Tale of Sir Thopas," in the excuse-ridden narrator of Troilus and Criseyde, and in Chaucer's cursed Adam Scriveyn, the poet's inheritors found their oppressed personae. Through close readings of poetry from Lydgate to Skelton, detailed analysis of manuscript anthologies and early printed books, and inquiries into the political environments and the social contexts of bookmaking, Lerer charts the construction of a Chaucer unassailable in rhetorical prowess and political sanction, a Chaucer aureate and laureate.