"--Books Abroad "Because this book represents a valuable trend in medieval literary study, it would deserve our applause even if it were far less perceptive than its many insights and general orientation show it to be.

Author: Charles Muscatine

Publisher: Univ of California Press

ISBN: 9780520009080

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 293

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Chaucer and the French Tradition, first published in 1957, is notable among modern studies of Chaucer for its attention to the importance of style. The author offers first an analysis of the two dominant traditions of style in the French literature on which Chaucer's poetry is based: the courtly, and the "bourgeois" or realistic. He then studies the stylistic character of the three important tarly poems, arguing that Chaucer's development was not a revolt from convention to realism, but rather a progressive mastery of borh methods simultanrously. Through his style, Chaucer is thus seen to be confronting the central problem of late medieval culture: the combination of the mundane and the transcendental, the realistic and the idealistic, the natural and the supernatural. Chaucer's solution is found in the ironic balance of "Troilus and Criseyde" and in the mixed style of the "Canterbury Tales."

Thus , had Chaucer's French been not so good ( it was better than his Latin and Italian ) , nor his particular social milieu so French , he would still very likely have been writing poetry of a French tradition .

Author: Charles Muscatine

Publisher: Univ of California Press

ISBN: 0520009088

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 300

View: 673

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Chaucer and the French Tradition, first published in 1957, is notable among modern studies of Chaucer for its attention to the importance of style. The author offers first an analysis of the two dominant traditions of style in the French literature on which Chaucer's poetry is based: the courtly, and the "bourgeois" or realistic. He then studies the stylistic character of the three important tarly poems, arguing that Chaucer's development was not a revolt from convention to realism, but rather a progressive mastery of borh methods simultanrously. Through his style, Chaucer is thus seen to be confronting the central problem of late medieval culture: the combination of the mundane and the transcendental, the realistic and the idealistic, the natural and the supernatural. Chaucer's solution is found in the ironic balance of "Troilus and Criseyde" and in the mixed style of the "Canterbury Tales."

Author: Charles Muscatine

Publisher:

ISBN: OCLC:563131164

Category:

Page: 303

View: 560

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For Muscatine , these sources illustrate a tradition defined by its " elaborateness and pointlessness " - see Chaucer and the French Tradition , 246 . Lee Patterson highlights the poem's classical elements in order to argue that it ...

Author: Deanne Williams

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521832160

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 308

View: 909

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What was the impact of the Norman Conquest on the culture of medieval and early modern England? Deanne Williams answers this question by contending that not only French language and literature, but the idea of Frenchness itself, produced England's literary and cultural identity. Examining a variety of English representations of, and responses to, France and 'the French' in the work of Chaucer, Caxton, Skelton, Shakespeare and others, this book shows how English literature emerged out of a simultaneous engagement with, and resistance to, the pervasive presence of French language and culture in England that was the legacy of the Norman Conquest. Drawing upon theories of gender and postcoloniality, this book revises traditional notions of English literary history by inserting France as a primary element in English self-fashioning, from Chaucer's Prioress to Shakespeare's Henry V.

1 Introduction : Chaucer's Italian Tradition Perhaps the two most significant literary events in Chaucer's career were his reading of French and Italian poets . Certainly Boethius was a long - standing influence ; Ovid , Virgil , and ...

Author: Warren Ginsberg

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

ISBN: 0472112341

Category: English poetry

Page: 320

View: 651

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

... the influence on Chaucer's poetry and prose of both the native English romance tradition and the French tradition (Roman de la rose, Machaut). ... Discusses influence of French language and poets, and of Chaucer's French experience ...

Author: Peter Brown

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 9780470692745

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 536

View: 253

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Designed as both a contribution to original research and as a stimulating and accessible text, this volume is a helpful, reliable, responsive and adaptable resource for students of Chaucer at all levels.

can be explained by studious attention to French tradition . 17 All this evidence issues naturally in the view that the " great work " of Chaucer's life , as James Wimsatt puts it , was the " development of an English poetic tradition ...

Author: Christopher Cannon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521592747

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 468

View: 340

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The Making of Chaucer's English undertakes a substantial reappraisal of the place Chaucer's English occupies in the history of the English language and the language of English literature. It attacks the widespread presumption that Chaucer invented literary English and argues instead that Chaucer's English is generally traditional. It shows that Chaucer's linguistic innovation was as much performance as fact, but it also traces the linguistic strategies that made (and make) the performance of 'originality' so believable. It also includes a valuable history of every word Chaucer uses. The book also interrogates the theory and methodology of historicising languages, so even as it explores how Chaucer's words matter, it also questions why these particular words have acquired such importance for poets and scholars alike for 600 years.

Author: Charles Muscatine

Publisher:

ISBN: OCLC:563131155

Category:

Page: 290

View: 847

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Even before the English poet went to Italy, Lowes continues, Chaucer began to enrich the sterile French love vision, ... the verse of his entire career.11 As celebrated as Muscatine's Chaucer and the French Tradition has been, however, ...

Author: Susan Schibanoff

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

ISBN: 9780802090355

Category: Poetry

Page: 376

View: 194

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Geoffrey Chaucer was arguably fourteenth-century England's greatest poet. In the nineteenth century, readers of Chaucer's early dream poems - the Book of the Duchess, House of Fame, and Parliament of Fowles - began to detect a tripartite model of his artistic development from a French to an Italian, and finally to an English phase. They fleshed out this model with the liberation narrative, the inspiring story of how Chaucer escaped the emasculating French house of bondage to become the generative father of English poetry. Although this division has now largely been dismissed, both the tripartite model and the accompanying liberation narrative persist in Chaucer criticism. In Chaucer's Queer Poetics, Susan Schibanoff interrogates why the tripartite model remains so tenacious even when literary history does not support it. Revealing deeply rooted Francophobic, homophobic, and nationalistic biases, Schibanoff examines the development paradigm and demonstrates that 'liberated Chaucer' depends on antiquated readings of key source texts for the dream trilogy. This study challenges the long held view the Chaucer fled the prison of effete French court verse to become the 'natural' English father poet and charts a new model of Chaucerian poetic development that discovers the emergence of a queer aesthetic in his work.

Examines Chaucer's development of a vernacular style out of two traditions – French and English – by the time he wrote the ... and prose of both the native English romance tradition and the French tradition (Roman de la rose, Machaut).

Author: Peter Brown

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 9781118902257

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 565

View: 632

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The extensively revised and expanded version of the acclaimed Companion to Chaucer An essential text for both established scholars and those seeking to expand their knowledge of Chaucer studies, A New Companion to Chaucer is an authoritative and up-to-date survey of Chaucer scholarship. Rigorous yet accessible, this book helps readers to identify current debates, recognize historical and literary context, and to understand how particular concepts and theories affect the interpretation of Chaucer’s texts. Chaucer specialists from around the globe offer contributions that range from updates of long-standing scholarship on biography, language, women, and social structures, to original research in new areas such as ideology, the afterlife, patronage, and sexuality. In presenting conflicting perspectives and ideological differences, this stimulating volume encourages readers to explore additional paths of inquiry and engage in lively and informed debate. Each chapter of the Companion, organized by issues and themes, balances textual analysis and cultural context by grounding the reader in existing scholarship. Key issues from specific passages are discussed with an annotated bibliography provided for reference and further reading. Compiled with all students of Chaucer in mind, this important volume: Presents contributions from both established and emerging specialists Explores the circumstances in which Chaucer wrote, such as the political and religious issues of his time Includes numerous close readings of selected poems Provides points of entry to a wide range of approaches to Chaucer’s works Incorporates original research, fresh perspectives, and updated additions to Chaucer scholarship A New Companion to Chaucer is a valuable and enduring resource for scholars, teachers, and students of medieval literature and medieval studies, as well as the general reader interested in interpretations and historical contexts of Chaucer’s writings.