CHAUCER AND HIS READERS by Professor Seth Lerer ( 9780691068114 )

Item Details

Title:

CHAUCER AND HIS READERS
IMAGINING THE AUTHOR IN LATE-MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£40.00
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ISBN 10:

0691068119

ISBN 13:

9780691068114

Publisher:

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

1 August, 1993

Pages:

332

Description:

Challenging the view that the 15th century was the drab age of English literary history, this treatise seeks to recover the late-medieval literary system that defined the canon of Chaucer's work. It shows how poets and printers of the era made Chaucer the father of English verse.

Synopsis:

Challenging the view that the fifteenth century was the "Drab Age" of English literary history, Seth Lerer seeks to recover the late-medieval literary system that defined the canon of Chaucer's work and the canonical approaches to its understanding. Lerer shows how the poets, scribes, and printers of the period constructed Chaucer as the "poet laureate" and "father" of English verse. Chaucer appears throughout the fifteenth century as an adviser to kings and master of technique, and Lerer reveals the patterns of subjection, childishness, and inability that characterize the stance of Chaucer's imitators and his readers. In figures from the Canterbury Tales such as the abused Clerk, the boyish Squire, and the infantilized narrator of the "Tale of Sir Thopas, " in the excuse-ridden narrator of Troilus and Criseyde, and in Chaucer's cursed Adam Scriveyn, the poet's inheritors found their oppressed personae. Through close readings of poetry from Lydgate to Skelton, detailed analysis of manuscript anthologies and early printed books, and inquiries into the political environments and the social contexts of bookmaking, Lerer charts the construction of a Chaucer unassailable in rhetorical prowess and political sanction, a Chaucer aureate and laureate.

Illustrations:

8 halftones

Publication:

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Returns:

Non-returnable

Some other items by this author:

BOETHIUS AND DIALOGUE

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BOETHIUS AND DIALOGUE (PB)

CHAUCER AND HIS READERS (PB)