Chaucer's Open Books
Title | Chaucer's Open Books PDF eBook |
Author | Rosemarie Potz McGerr |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 210 |
Release | 1998 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 9780813015729 |
Rosemarie McGerr examines the open-endedness of Chaucer's narrative poems in relation to modern and postmodern theory and to medieval traditions. She discusses links between Chaucer's poems and modern definitions of open form and then addresses medieval conventions of closure and pre-Chaucerian poems that subverted those conventions. Against this critical backdrop, she offers readings of Chaucer's narrative poems focusing on how they manipulate medieval conventions of closure and openness, highlight ambiguity in interpretation of texts, and raise questions about the relationship of gender and reading.
Mythodologies
Title | Mythodologies PDF eBook |
Author | Joseph A. Dane |
Publisher | punctum books |
Total Pages | 294 |
Release | 2018-05-17 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 1947447564 |
Mythodologies challenges the implied methodology in contemporary studies in the humanities. We claim, at times, that we gather facts or what we will call evidence, and from that form hypotheses and conclusions. Of course, we recognize that the sum total of evidence for any argument is beyond comprehension; therefore, we construct, and we claim, preliminary hypotheses, perhaps to organize the chaos of evidence, or perhaps simply to find it; we might then see (we claim) whether that evidence challenges our tentative hypotheses. Ideally, we could work this way. Yet the history of scholarship and our own practices suggest we do nothing of the kind. Rather, we work the way we teach our composition students to write: choose or construct a thesis, then invent the evidence to support it. This book has three parts, examining such methods and pseudo-methods of invention in medieval studies, bibliography, and editing. Part One, "Noster Chaucer," looks at examples in Chaucer studies, such as the notion that Chaucer wrote iambic pentameter, and the definition of a canon in Chaucer. "Our" Chaucer has, it seems, little to do with Chaucer himself, and in constructing this entity, Chaucerians are engaged largely in self-validation of their own tradition. Part Two, "Bibliography and Book History," consists of three studies in the field of bibliography: the recent rise in studies of annotations; the implications of presumably neutral terminology in editing, a case-study in cataloguing. Part Three, "Cacophonies: A Bibliographical Rondo," is a series of brief studies extending these critiques to other areas in the humanities. It seems not to matter what we talk about: meter, book history, the sex life of bonobos. In all of these discussions, we see the persistence of error, the intractability of uncritical assumptions, and the dominance of authority over evidence. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Part I. Noster Chaucerus Chap. 1. How Many Chaucerians Does it Take to Count to Eleven? The Meter of Kynaston's 1635 Translation of Troilus and Criseyde and its Implications for Chaucerian Metrics Chap. 2. Chaucer's "Rude Times" Chap. 3. Meditation on Our Chaucer and the History of the Canon Coda. Godwin's Portrait of Chaucer Part II. Bibliography and Book History Chap. 4. The Singularities of Books and Reading . Chap. 5. Editorial Projecting Chap. 6. The Haunting of Suckling's Fragmenta Aurea (1646) Coda. T. F. Dibdin: The Rhetoric of Bibliophilia Part III. Cacophonies: A Bibliographic Rondo Fakes and Frauds: The "Flewelling Antiphonary" and Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius Modernity and Middle English The Quantification of Readability The Elephant Paper and Histories of Medieval Drama The Pynson Chaucer(s) of 1526: Bibliographical Circularity Margaret Mead and the Bonobos Reading My Library
Chaucer and the Poets
Title | Chaucer and the Poets PDF eBook |
Author | Winthrop Wetherbee |
Publisher | Cornell University Press |
Total Pages | 290 |
Release | 2016-11-01 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 1501707094 |
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.
A New Introduction to Chaucer
Title | A New Introduction to Chaucer PDF eBook |
Author | D. S. Brewer |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 440 |
Release | 2014-07-15 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 1317895371 |
This new introduction to Chaucer has been radically rewritten since the previous edition which was published in 1984. The book is a controversial and modern restatement of some of the traditional views on Chaucer, and seeks to present a rounded introduction to his life, cultural setting and works. Professor Brewer takes into account recent literary criticism, both challenging new ideas and using them in his analysis of Chaucer's work. Above all, there is a strong emphasis on leading the reader to understand and enjoy the poetry and prose, and to try to understand Chaucer's values which are often seen to oppose modern principles. A New Introduction to Chaucer is the result of Derek Brewer's distinguished career spanning fifty years of research and study of Chaucer and contemporary scholarship and criticism. New interpretations of many of the poems are presented including a detailed account of the Book of the Duchess. Derek Brewer's fresh and narrative style of writing will appeal to all who are interested in Chaucer, from sixth-form and undergraduate students who are new to Chaucer's work through to more advanced students and lecturers.
Chaucer
Title | Chaucer PDF eBook |
Author | Marion Turner |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | 626 |
Release | 2020-09-22 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0691210152 |
"More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life--yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination. Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early circulation of his writings, this innovative biography documents a series of vivid episodes, moving from the commercial wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence and the kingdom of Navarre, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side. The narrative recounts Chaucer's experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter's nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan, where he encountered the writings of Dante and Boccaccio. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer's writings, taking the reader to the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde, the gardens of the dream visions, and the peripheries and thresholds of The Canterbury Tales. By exploring the places Chaucer visited, the buildings he inhabited, the books he read, and the art and objects he saw, this landmark biography tells the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant's son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales." -- Publisher's description.
Dark Chaucer
Title | Dark Chaucer PDF eBook |
Author | Myra Seaman |
Publisher | punctum books |
Total Pages | 201 |
Release | 2012 |
Genre | Electronic books |
ISBN | 9780615701073 |
Although widely beloved for its playfulness and comic sensibility, Chaucer's poetry is also subtly shot through with dark moments that open into obscure and irresolvably haunting vistas, passages into which one might fall head-first and never reach the abyssal bottom, scenes and events where everything could possibly go horribly wrong or where everything that matters seems, if even momentarily, altogether and irretrievably lost. And then sometimes, things really do go wrong. Opting to dilate rather than cordon off this darkness, this volume assembles a variety of attempts to follow such moments into their folds of blackness and horror, to chart their endless sorrows and recursive gloom, and to take depth soundings in the darker recesses of the Chaucerian lakes in order to bring back palm- or bite-sized pieces (black jewels) of bitter Chaucer that could be shared with others . . . an assortment, if you will. Not that this collection finds only emptiness and non-meaning in these caves and lakes. You never know what you will discover in the dark.Contents: Candace Barrington, "Dark Whiteness: Benjanim Brawley and Chaucer" -- Brantley L. Bryant & Alia, "Saturn's Darkness" -- Ruth Evans, "A Dark Stain and a Non-Encounter" -- Gaelan Gilbert, "Chaucerian Afterlives: Reception and Eschatology" -- Leigh Harrison, "Black Gold: The Former (and Future) Age" -- Nicola Masciandaro, "Half Dead: Parsing Cecelia" -- J. Allan Mitchell, "In the Event of the Franklin's Tale" -- Travis Neel & Andrew Richmond, "Black as the Crow" -- Hannah Priest, "Unravelling Constance" -- Lisa Schamess, "L'O de V: A Palimpsest" -- Myra Seaman, "Disconsolate Art" -- Karl Steel, "Kill Me, Save Me, Let Me Go: Custance, Virginia, Emelye" -- Elaine Treharne, "The Physician's Tale as Hagioclasm" -- Bob Valasek, "The Light has Lifted: Pandare Trickster" -- Lisa Weston, "Suffer the Little Children, or, A Rumination on the Faith of Zombies" -- Thomas White, "The Dark Is Light Enough: The Layout of the Tale of Sir Thopas." This assortment of dark morsels also features a prose-poem Preface by Gary Shipley.
The End Is Just the Beginning
Title | The End Is Just the Beginning PDF eBook |
Author | Mike Bender |
Publisher | Crown Books for Young Readers |
Total Pages | 41 |
Release | 2021-04-20 |
Genre | Juvenile Fiction |
ISBN | 1984896938 |
A timely message of hope and comfort, this stunning picture book is the perfect treasure to share with anyone trying to navigate these uncertain times—or any life transition! Starting a book at the end may seem confusing. But the end of one thing is just the beginning of something new in this innovative and heartfelt book from #1 New York Times bestselling author Mike Bender. Accompanied by beautiful and inspiring illustrations by Diana Mayo, this story is ideal for helping kids understand how to meet life’s challenges with optimism and hope. A wonderful gift for all ages.