Chaucer
Contemporary Approaches
Susanna Fein editor David Raybin editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press
Published:18th Dec '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£27.95(9780271035680)
This volume brings together twelve essays by the scholars who have helped forge the paths for this contemporary study and continue to chart a course for the next generation of work on Chaucer and medieval English literary studies.
Eleven essays that explore how modern scholarship interprets Chaucer's writings.
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 TheChaucer Review, have organized this volume to showcase those strands of inquiry and perspectives 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 Chaucer's 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.
“The book is neither intended nor suitable for beginners, and all but the most sophisticated undergraduates are likely to become lost amid many references to scholars and scholarship. But specialists with even limited familiarity with Chaucer will find this collection ideal.”
—S. Downey Choice
“What is engaging about the essays in this collection is their analytical, speculative, sometimes contestive turns, their proposed new directions for Chaucer studies. . . . This entire collection, as a collection that points forward, is entirely welcome.”
—Leonard Koff Journal of English and Germanic Philology
“This volume admirably achieves its goal to sketch out the scholarly successes in Chaucer studies. . . . [T]he chapters in this volume succeed in articulating the impressive contributions made by the current generations of Chaucer scholars and in offering a clear sense of the promising future that lies ahead.”
—Deanne Williams Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
“Initiating collaborative projects, minding gaps in the scholarship of our field, fostering community: [Fein and Raybin’s] contribution extends well beyond co-editing Chaucer Review, the journal whose fiftieth anniversary this handsome book celebrates. Chaucer: Visual Approaches offers a wealth of images, fresh ways to think about them, and fruitful exploration of their many implications for reading Chaucer.”
—Nancy Mason Bradbury Studies in the Age of Chaucer
ISBN: 9780271035673
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 26mm
Weight: 513g
280 pages