Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons

Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons PDF Author: P. Martin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230378633
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
In this challenging study Priscilla Martin investigates the subjects of women, sex and gender in Chaucer's poetry. She argues convincingly that these are Chaucer's major subjects and that he presents them as an area of human experience fraught with problems. Women, instead of producing texts and meanings themselves, are trapped in the books and meanings of others, and so the Madonna and the courtly heroine, the nun and the wife, are familiar but questionable images of constructed femininity. '...an intelligent, sensitive, fresh and close reading which focuses upon Chaucer's women ... unconventional and subtle' - John J.McGavin, Times Higher Education Supplement

Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons

Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons PDF Author: P. Martin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230378633
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this challenging study Priscilla Martin investigates the subjects of women, sex and gender in Chaucer's poetry. She argues convincingly that these are Chaucer's major subjects and that he presents them as an area of human experience fraught with problems. Women, instead of producing texts and meanings themselves, are trapped in the books and meanings of others, and so the Madonna and the courtly heroine, the nun and the wife, are familiar but questionable images of constructed femininity. '...an intelligent, sensitive, fresh and close reading which focuses upon Chaucer's women ... unconventional and subtle' - John J.McGavin, Times Higher Education Supplement

Chaucer's Women

Chaucer's Women PDF Author: Priscilla Martin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description


Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons

Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons PDF Author: P. Martin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230378633
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this challenging study Priscilla Martin investigates the subjects of women, sex and gender in Chaucer's poetry. She argues convincingly that these are Chaucer's major subjects and that he presents them as an area of human experience fraught with problems. Women, instead of producing texts and meanings themselves, are trapped in the books and meanings of others, and so the Madonna and the courtly heroine, the nun and the wife, are familiar but questionable images of constructed femininity. '...an intelligent, sensitive, fresh and close reading which focuses upon Chaucer's women ... unconventional and subtle' - John J.McGavin, Times Higher Education Supplement

Life in Words

Life in Words PDF Author: Jill Mann
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442648651
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This volume collects fifteen landmark essays published over the last three decades by the distinguished medievalist Jill Mann. Bringing together her essays on Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, and Malory, the collection foregrounds the common interest in the semantic implications of key vocabulary such as “authority,” “adventure,” and “price” that links them together. Mann, one of the finest critics of Middle English literature in her generation, uses the concepts suggested by the language of medieval literature itself as a way into the masterpieces of Middle English, including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Morte Darthur. An extended introduction by Mark Rasmussen brings out the nature of the themes that run through the collection, analyses the critical methods in play, and assesses their significance in the context of Middle English studies over the last thirty years.

Feminizing Chaucer

Feminizing Chaucer PDF Author: Jill Mann
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859916138
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
An investigation of Chaucer's thinking about women, assessed in the light of developments in feminist criticism. Women are a major subject of Chaucer's writings, and their place in his work has attracted much recent critical attention. Feminizing Chaucer investigates Chaucer's thinking about women, and re-assesses it in the light of developments in feminist criticism. It explores Chaucer's handling of gender issues, of power roles, of misogynist stereotypes and the writer's responsibility for perpetuating them, and the complex meshing of activity and passivityin human experience. Mann argues that the traditionally 'female' virtues of patience and pity are central to Chaucer's moral ethos, and that this necessitates a reformulation of ideal masculinity. First published [as Geoffrey Chaucer] in the series 'Feminist Readings', this new edition includes a new chapter, 'Wife-Swapping in Medieval Literature'. The references and bibliography have been updated, and a new preface surveys publications in the field over the last decade. JILL MANN is currently Notre Dame Professor of English, University of Notre Dame.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer PDF Author: G. A. Rudd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134632762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
So many questions surround the key figures in the English literary canon, but most books focus on one aspect of an author's life or work, or limit themselves to a single critical approach. Geoffrey Chaucer offers: *basic information on an author's life, contexts and works *the major critical issues surrounding the author's works, from the time they were written to the present *explanations of the full range of different critical views and interpretations * guides to further reading in each area.

Conquering the Reign of Femeny

Conquering the Reign of Femeny PDF Author: Angela Jane Weisl
Publisher: DS Brewer
ISBN: 9780859914604
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Close study of Chaucer's most important works shows how he used gender issues to extend the range of romance. The paradox of romance as a genre is that it contains multiple possibilities, yet remains profoundly constrained by its own terms and conventions. Through a close reading of several of Chaucer's most important works, Dr Weisl examines Chaucer's use of gender issues to explore and challenge this genre. She argues that Chaucer's complex treatment of the romance, following both continental and Middle English traditions, experiments with and tests romance conventions. Each chapter looks indetail at one or more of Chaucer's works, examining their different approaches to the problems of gender, and showing how this is closely connected with genre. Subjects addressed include the feminised private spaces in Troilus and Criseydewhich protect Criseyde, but are inevitably penetrated by male power; the masculine imperatives of the epic which challenge the limits of the feminised romance in the Knight'sTale(and the speech of its heroine Emelye, who questions the assumptions of the genre itself); Canacee in the Squire's Tale, who rejects the stereotyped role of the heroine, and the romance world in the Tale of SirThopas, without a heroine at all.Dr ANGELA JANE WEISLis visiting assistant professor of English and Women's Studies at Wittenberg University, Ohio.

The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry Before 1600

The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry Before 1600 PDF Author: Michelle M. Sauer
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438108346
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
Some of the most important authors in British poetry left their mark onliterature before 1600, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and, of course, William Shakespeare. "The Facts On File Companion to British Poetry before 1600"is an encyclopedic guide to British poetry from the beginnings to theyear 1600, featuring approximately 600 entries ranging in length from300 to 2,500 words.

Chaucer: The Basics

Chaucer: The Basics PDF Author: Jacqueline Tasioulas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317212185
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Chaucer: The Basics is an accessible introduction to the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. It provides a clear critical analysis of the texts, while also providing some necessary background to key medieval ideas and the historical period in which he lived. Jacqueline Tasioulas gives a brief account of Chaucer’s life in its historical and cultural context and also introduces the reader to some of the key religious and philosophical ideas of the period. The essentials of the language and pronunciation are introduced through close reading in a section dedicated to demystifying this often alien-seeming aspect of studying Chaucer. Including a whole chapter devoted to poetry the book also discusses key works, such as: The Book of the Duchess The House of Fame The Parliament of Fowls Troilus and Criseyde The Legend of Good Women The Canterbury Tales With glosses and translations of texts, a glossary of key terms and a timeline, this book is essential reading for anyone studying Chaucer and medieval literature.

Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World

Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World PDF Author: Robert W. Hanning
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192647628
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World understands the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales to communicate a radical uncertainty haunting most human endeavors, one that challenges effective knowledge of the future, the past, or the distant present; accurate perception of both complex, equivocal signifying systems, including language, and the intentions hidden rather than revealed by the words and deeds of others; and successful strategy in dealing with the chronic excesses and arbitrariness of power. This comparative study of Decameron novelle and Canterbury pilgrim tales yields the insight that the key to coping with these challenges is pragmatic prudence: rational calculation issuing in an opportunistic, often amoral choice of ingenious deeds and/or eloquent words appropriate (though without guarantee) to mastering a specific crisis, and achieving the goal of agency in the here and now, not salvation in the Hereafter. An initial chapter explores the Aristotelian antecedents, contemporaneous cultural influences, and narrative techniques that intersect to shape the radically uncertain world of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, while succeeding chapters pair, and compare, stories from both collections that illustrate the quest for agency-its successes and its failures—through plots often brilliantly adapted from simpler antecedents, as well as eloquence by turns satiric and insightful. This is storytelling that exposes a culture's fears, as well as its aspirations for mastery over the circumstances that challenge its existence; reading these tales should be a labor of love and the goal of this study is to help assure that the reader's labor shall not be lost.