Chaucer's Language and the Philosophers' Tradition

Chaucer's Language and the Philosophers' Tradition PDF Author: J. D. Burnley
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859910512
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This book is designed to explore the various kinds of association found in Chaucer's lexical usage, and so to alert the reader to the wider implications of particular words and phrases. By concentrating on the `architecture' of the language, Dr Burnley offers what is in some respects an antidote to the skilled contextual glossing of the editor, whose activities may often obscure important connections. Such connections are vital to the interpretation of any work as a whole, and awareness of them is what distinguishes the scholar from the student who can `translate' Chaucer perfectly adequately without being aware of deeper meanings. Even apparently simple words such as l>cruel, mercy/l>and l>pity/l>can often carry subtle echoes and overtones. Dr Burnley is particularly concerned with words which carry some l>conceptual/l>association, and thus with moral stereotypes inherited from classical and early medieval philosophy, which formed the currency of both secular and religious ideals of conduct in the Middle Ages. His prime concern is to identify the themes and symbols and their characteristic language, and thus to provide a firm basis for critical investigation in Chaucer's literary use of this material.

Chaucer's Language and the Philosophers' Tradition

Chaucer's Language and the Philosophers' Tradition PDF Author: J. D. Burnley
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859910512
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This book is designed to explore the various kinds of association found in Chaucer's lexical usage, and so to alert the reader to the wider implications of particular words and phrases. By concentrating on the `architecture' of the language, Dr Burnley offers what is in some respects an antidote to the skilled contextual glossing of the editor, whose activities may often obscure important connections. Such connections are vital to the interpretation of any work as a whole, and awareness of them is what distinguishes the scholar from the student who can `translate' Chaucer perfectly adequately without being aware of deeper meanings. Even apparently simple words such as l>cruel, mercy/l>and l>pity/l>can often carry subtle echoes and overtones. Dr Burnley is particularly concerned with words which carry some l>conceptual/l>association, and thus with moral stereotypes inherited from classical and early medieval philosophy, which formed the currency of both secular and religious ideals of conduct in the Middle Ages. His prime concern is to identify the themes and symbols and their characteristic language, and thus to provide a firm basis for critical investigation in Chaucer's literary use of this material.

The Sources of Chaucer's Poetics

The Sources of Chaucer's Poetics PDF Author: Amanda Holton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135188168X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Focusing on four aspects of Chaucer's poetics-use of narrative, speech, rhetoric, and figurative language-this is the first book-length study to identify Chaucer's distinctive poetic strategies by making specific comparisons with known textual sources. The author provides a combination of analysis of both poetic stylistics and sources, reading The Legend of Good Women and five of The Canterbury Tales (The Knight's Tale, The Man of Law's Tale, The Physician's Tale, The Monk's Tale, and The Manciple's Tale) against their textual sources, including Ovid's Metamorphoses and Heroides, Boccaccio's Teseida, Virgil's Aeneid, Le Roman de la Rose, and histories by Nicholas Trevet and Guido delle Colonne. Holton provides a picture of Chaucer's habits as a writer, showing that he was consistent in asserting his own techniques against the pressure of his sources and in keeping control over words and their meaning.

A Companion to Chaucer

A Companion to Chaucer PDF Author: Peter Brown
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 047069274X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
Designed as both a contribution to original research and as a stimulating and accessible text, this volume is a helpful, reliable, responsive and adaptable resource for students of Chaucer at all levels.

Chaucer and the Early Writings of Boccaccio

Chaucer and the Early Writings of Boccaccio PDF Author: David Wallace
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859911861
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
David Wallace's examination of the aims and literary affiliations of Boccaccio's early writings provides an indispensable preface to and context for an informed appraisal of Chaucer's usage of Boccaccio. Previous studies of the relationship between the work of the two poets have tended to consider Chaucer's borrowings without making a thorough study of the traditions which shaped the Italian writer's work. Wallace argues that Boccaccio was not primarily concerned with winning recognition at the Angevin court, but was chiefly concerned with fashioning an identity for himself as an illustrious vernacular author. Chaucer recognised that both the l>Filostrato/l> and l>Teseida/l> derived their basic narrative capabilities from popular tradition analogous to that of the English tail-rhyme romance. Following a detailed analysis of Chaucer's translation practice in l>Troilus and Criseyde/l>, Wallace concludes that it was Boccaccio's attempt to develop a narrative art occupying the middle ground between popular and illustrious, domestic and European traditions that Chaucer found so uniquely congenial and instructive.

English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries PDF Author: Piero Boitani
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521311496
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
In this detailed study of English narrative verse the author describes and analyses the undisputed masterpieces of narrative (such as the works of the Gawain poet, Langland, Gower and Chaucer), as well as anonymous romances and specimens of religious and comic narrative which form the background to more well-known poems.

Chaucer and the Politics of Discourse

Chaucer and the Politics of Discourse PDF Author: Michaela Paasche Grudin
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570031021
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
A detailed study of Chaucer's fascination with communication as a reciprocal process between speaker and listener', which considers the importance of discourse for social order and the ways in which Chaucer used it against authority.

Middle English

Middle English PDF Author: Laurel Brinton
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110525321
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The volume provides a wide-ranging account of Middle English, organized by linguistic level. Not only are the traditional areas of linguistic study explored in state-of-the-art chapters, but the volume also covers less traditional areas of study, including creolization, sociolinguistics, literary language (including the language of Chaucer), pragmatics and discourse, dialectology, standardization, language contact, and multilingualism.

Introduction to Chaucerian English

Introduction to Chaucerian English PDF Author: Arthur O. Sandved
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859911802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
There is fairly general agreement that the modern reader's appreciation of Chaucer's writings can be enhanced by providing the reader with guides to `Chaucerian background' - literary, historical and cultural - and students of Chaucer are fortunate in having at their disposal a large number of books covering various aspects of Chaucerian background. One field which is less well covered is Chaucer's language: it is true that certain aspects of Chaucer's syntax and lexis have been dealt with in fairly recent years, but other subcategories of Chaucerian English, such as phonology and morphology, deserve more attention. The absence of readily available guides to these aspects of Chaucer's English has placed the linguistically-oriented student at a considerable disadvantage compared with his more literary-minded colleague, but the latter is also in need of a more detailed and reliable guide to Chaucerian English than the somewhat scant notes often included in editions of Chaucerian texts. The present book is intended to meet this need. It is largely limited to Chaucerian phonology and morphology, and assumes some familiarity with the rudiments of linguistics, but the technical terminology has been kept to a minimum.

Chaucer's Philosophical Visions

Chaucer's Philosophical Visions PDF Author: Kathryn L. Lynch
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9780859916004
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
New readings of Chaucer's dream visions, demonstrating his philosophical interests and learning.

Chaucer

Chaucer PDF Author: William Anthony Davenport
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0859912779
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
`Lively and interesting... Complaint and its interaction with its narrative context is explored across the range of Chaucer's oeuvre from the shorter poems to various Tales.' NOTES & QUERIES Counters the view of Chaucer's complaints as exercises in a worn-out French tradition by demonstrating how his effort to fuse lyric and narrative modes led him to experiment with complaint. `His analyses give new perspectives on several of Chaucer's works - an intelligent, original and profitable view.'STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER