Chaucer And The French Tradition

Table of contents

This collection grows out of the Spring 1987 issue of Studies in the Literary Imagination. Along with the original 6 essays, now revised for book publication, this volume adds 8 new examinations of the connections between the authors of medieval France and England. The volume editor is a translator of Machaut and intimately involved in scholarly investigations that provide connections between culture and texts. Framed by diverse studies that investigate the genius of the patron and the shaping role of the editor, those articles serve as models both of how to study particular authors or texts, and as paradigms for other researchers to follow.

he French presence in English literary history in the centuries following the Conquest has to some extent been glossed over or treated as an interlude. During this period, roughly 1100-1420, French, like Latin, was the language of the educated; in the courts of England, and for nobles, clerics, and the rising commercial elements, communication was multilingual. In his ground-breaking study, William Calin explores indepth this era of medieval English literature and culture in relation to its distinctly French influences and contemporaries. He examines the Anglo-Norman contribution to medieval literature, concentrating on romance and hagiography; the great continental French texts, such as Prose Lancelot and the Romance of the Rose, which had a dominant role in shaping literature in English; and the English response to the French cultural world - the two 'modes' in English where the French presence was most significant: court poetry (Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve) and Middle English romance. This book is grounded in French sources both well-known and relatively obscure. Translations of the Old French makeThe French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval England accessible to scholars and students of Medieval English, comparatists, and historians, as well as those proficient in French. Calin develops a synthesis of medieval French and English literature that will be especially useful for classroom study.

"Eleven essays that explore how modern scholarship interprets Chaucer's writings"--Provided by publisher.

A substantial reappraisal of the place of Chaucer's English in the history of English language and literature.

First full-length study of what the manuscript contexts can reveal about early reactions to Chaucer, and in particular his treatment of women.

Explores provocative questions about the dynamics of cross-cultural translation and the formation of tradition