Chaucer In Perspective

Norman Blake, Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Sheffield University, is known throughout the world to scholars of mediaeval English Literature. He has published thirty books and 140 articles on subjects as diverse as Old Norse, Old English, Middle English, early printed books, Shakespeare, Historical Linguistics, Stylistics, Grammar, and the cultural context of mediaeval England. He is best known as an authority on Chaucer, Caxton and Shakespeare's language, and is director of The Canterbury Tales Project, based in the University of Sheffield, which is a scheme to put all the manuscript and early printed versions of the poem onto computer and to issue the transcribed texts on CD-ROM. Norman has lectured and taught in many countries, and is a frequent contributor to international conferences. He has been a Teaching Quality Assessor in universities in Britain and elsewhere. He is also well known (among many other things) for his work as member of the Council of the Early English Text Society, Editor for the Index of Middle English Prose, General Editor of Macmillan's Language of Literature series, and as Secretary of the European Society of the Study of English. Friends and colleagues of this approachable and widely respected scholar have come together to mark his 65th birthday in spring 1999 by contributing to this volume. The essays-on Chaucer, Caxton and related aspects of Middle English-are not only a tribute to Norman's work but also a valuable contribution to Middle English studies in their own right.

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

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

What were the medieval stylistic, aesthetic, and literary conventions that Chancer drew upon and knew that his audience would understand? In this rich study Mr. Robertson has included 118 illustrations-of medieval sculpture, cathedral interiors, illuminated manuscripts, paintings, ornamental devices and decorations-to show how these conventions affected the visual arts of Chaucer's time. Special attention is directed to fundamental differences between medieval and modern attitudes toward poetry, and to the significance of these differences for an approach to medieval art. By placing Chaucer fully in his own time, Mr. Robertson establishes new perspectives for understanding Chaucer’s poetry. His book is like a rich tapestry weaving together many threads. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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

Using extant manuscripts as his starting point, Edward Condren argues that the overall design of the Canterbury Tales has a structural parallel with Dante's Commedia. He demonstrates how individual tales support this design and how the design itself confers rich meaning, in some instances investing with new complexity tales that otherwise have been little appreciated.

The Description for this book, A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspective, will be forthcoming.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated literary work of medieval England, portrays the culture of the late Middle Ages as a deeply commercial environment, replete with commodities and dominated by market relationships. However, the market is not the only mode of exchange in Chaucer’s world or in his poem. Chaucer’s Gifts reveals the gift economy at work in the tales. Applying important recent advances in anthropological gift theory, it illuminates and explains this network of exchanges and obligations. Chaucer’s Gifts argues that the world of the Canterbury Tales harbours deep commitments to reciprocity and obligation which are at odds with a purely commercial culture, and demonstrates how the market and commercial relations are not natural, eternal, or inevitable – an essential lesson if we are to understand Chaucer’s world or our own.