A description of Chaucer's adaptation of classical materials to various uses--comedy, tragedy, and allegory; theme, action, and character--this book is also an analysis of Chaucer's poetics. Chaucer's creative use of the classical past is shown as a central part of his virtuosity. The book begins with a general discussion of the medieval traditions of classical myth, showing how Chaucer made himself the first humanist of English literature--opening to England both the ancient world of Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan and also the contemporary perceptions of that world by such continental masters as Dante, Graunson, Boccaccio, and Froissart. Succeeding chapters move through the categories of Chaucer's aesthetic uses of classical materials in specific poems: brief allusions, adaptations of myth to moral allegory, references to places, and lampoons of classical divinities. Professor McCall concludes by contrasting Chaucer's "rhetorics of fragmentation and discontinuity" with those of modern writers. Today such rhetorics have a despairing or apocalyptic tone. For Chaucer they conveyed "patient acceptance of the world and one's own self."

Examines the life and writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, including detailed synopses of his works, explanations of literary terms, character portraits, social and historical influences, and more.

Includes alphabetically arranged entries on the material culture of Chaucer's England and on the customs, rituals, and beliefs of the medieval world.

While numerous classical dictionaries identify the figures and tales of Greek and Roman mythology, this reference book explains the allegorical significance attached to the myths by Medieval and Renaissance authors. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and places of classical myth and legend. Each entry includes a brief account of the myth, with reference to the Greek and Latin sources. The entry then discusses how Medieval and Renaissance commentators interpreted the myth, and how poets, dramatists, and artists employed the allegory in their art. Each entry includes a bibliography and the volume concludes with appendices and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Over 2,000 entries with simple, complete explanations of classical myths, heroes, authors, works, place names and symbols. And a bibliography of recommended translations of Greek and Latin prose and poetry. “A knowledge of classical mythology is indispensable in understanding and appreciating much of the great literature, sculpture, and painting of both the ancients and the moderns. Unless we know the marvelous stories of the deities and heroes of the ancients, their great literature and art as much later work down to the present day will remain unintelligible. Through the centuries from Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare, and Milton on, not only the major writers but also hundreds of lesser writers have retold the old tales or used them as a point of departure for new interpretations in terms of contemporary problems and psychology.”—From author’s Introduction