Synopses & Reviews
In the late Middle Ages, Chaucer invents two imaginative domains crucial to his culture and understanding of the emergence of selfhood, subjectivity, and social arrangements; antiquity and late-medieval modernity. Robert Edwards demonstrates in this study how this was the result of Chaucer's reading and re-writing of the works of Boccaccio, which provides sources and models for portraying the classic past and medieval modernity. In so doing, Edwards provides us with a valuable way of assessing Chaucer's analysis of late medieval culture.
Review
"Edwards's attentive and accomplished study will surely engage students and scholars" --
Choice
Synopsis
A Note of Texts and Abbreviations Preface Introduction The 'strif of Thebes': Statius, Boccaccio, and Chaucer The Twin Necessity of Troilus and Criseyde The 'confusion of gentil wemen': Antiquity and the Short Side of History The 'Cherles Tale' and Chaucerian Modernity 'The sclaundre of Walter': The Clerk's Tale and the Problem of Hermeneutics Rewriting Menedon's Story: Decameron 10.5 and The Franklin's Tale Notes Index
Synopsis
In the late Middle Ages, Chaucer invents two imaginative domains crucial to his culture and understanding of the emergence of selfhood, subjectivity, and social arrangements; antiquity and late-medieval modernity. Robert Edwards demonstrates in this study how this was the result of Chaucer's reading and re-writing of the works of Boccaccio, which provides sources and models for portraying the classic past and medieval modernity. In so doing, Edwards provides us with a valuable way of assessing Chaucer's analysis of late medieval culture.
Synopsis
This book examines Chaucer's reading of Boccaccio and his representatin of antiquity and modernity in the late Middle Ages.
About the Author
Robert R. Edwards is Distinguished Professor of English and comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University.
Table of Contents
"The Strif of Thebes": Statius, Boccaccio, and Chaucer * The Twin Necessity of
Troilus and Criseyde * The "Confusioun of Gentil Wemen": Antiquity and the Short Side of History * The "Cherles Tale" and Chaucerian Modernity * "The Sclaundre of Walter": The Clerk's Tale and the Problem of Hermeneutics * Rewriting Menedon's Story:
Decameron 10.5 and the Franklin's Tale