Share This Page
Chaucer
Contemporary Approaches
280 pages | 3 illustrations | 6 x 9 | 2009
ISBN 978-0-271-03567-3 | cloth: $65.00
Paperback edition is not available in the U.S.
Chaucer was an extraordinary writer who expressed the tenor of his times with ingenious verbal facility and a profound sympathy for the human condition. Like his original work, the ongoing study of his life, writings, and culture reflects the questions, conversations, and scholarly approaches of contemporary society. A renaissance of sorts in Chaucer studies has been flourishing in recent years, led by the scholars represented in this volume. They continue to chart a course for the next generation of work on Chaucer and medieval English literary studies.
Susanna Fein and David Raybin, editors of the Chaucer Review, have organized this volume to showcase those strands of inquiry and perspectives of thought that are yielding exhilarating new slants on the poetic records of the Middle Ages. By combining twenty-first-century theoretical orientations and material perspectives, each of the twelve essays here adds contemporary relevance to our reading of Chaucer, while remaining strongly grounded in his critical legacy. Using these methods to explore Chaucers relationship to place, his contemporary sociolinguistic environment, and issues of humor, gender, and literary and political forces in his works, Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches not only presents experienced and budding scholars alike with an overview of modern approaches, but also provides a blueprint for Chaucer studies into the future.
Susanna Fein is Professor of English at Kent State University and co-editor of the Chaucer Review.
David Raybin is Professor of English at Eastern Illinois University and co-editor of the Chaucer Review.
Content
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Susanna Fein and David Raybin
I. Chaucer's Places
1. Italy
Robert R. Edwards
2. France
Ardis Butterfield
3. England
Kathy Lavezzo
II. Chaucer's Audiences
4. Manuscripts and Scribes
Simon Horobin
5. Receptions: Medieval, Tudor, Modern
Seth Lerer
III. Chaucer and Language
6. Language in Use
Karla Taylor
7. Colonialism, Latinity, and Resistance
John M. Bowers
IV. Reenvisioning Chaucer
8. Humor in Perspective
Laura Kendrick
9. Dream Poems
A. C. Spearing
10. Gender and Sexuality
Glenn Burger
11. Literary History
Steven Justice
Bibliography
Editors and Contributors
Index