Geoffrey Chaucer

Jill Mann

(original-spelling edition) (Penguin Classics)

The Canterbury Tales

This volume collects fifteen landmark essays published over the last three decades by the distinguished medievalist Jill Mann. Bringing together her essays on Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, and Malory, the collection foregrounds the common interest in the semantic implications of key vocabulary such as “authority,” “adventure,” and “price” that links them together. Mann, one of the finest critics of Middle English literature in her generation, uses the concepts suggested by the language of medieval literature itself as a way into the masterpieces of Middle English, including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Morte Darthur. An extended introduction by Mark Rasmussen brings out the nature of the themes that run through the collection, analyses the critical methods in play, and assesses their significance in the context of Middle English studies over the last thirty years.

Essays on Chaucer, the Gawain-Poet, and Malory

Life in Words

Life Fellow in English Jill Mann

Maura Nolan

Versifying the Bible in the Middle Ages / Michael Lapidge -- "He knew Nat Catoun" : medieval school-texts and Middle English literature / Jill Mann -- Computing Cynewulf : the Judith-connection / Andy Orchard -- The contexts of Notre Dame / A.S.G. Edwards -- the haunted text : ghostly reflections in the mirror to devout people / Vincent Gillespie -- the visual environment of Carthusian texts : decoration and illustration in Notre Dame 67 / Jessica Brantley -- The Knight and the rose : French manuscripts in the Notre Dame library / Maureen Boulton -- The meditations on the life of Christ : an illuminated fourteenth-century Italian manuscript at the University of Notre Dame / Dianne Phillips.

Essays on Medieval Works, Manuscripts, Authors, and Readers

The Text in the Community

Bringing together material in English, French, and Latin,this book analyzes the shrewd perceptions about human life and language that emerge from beast narratives. Works discussed include the Speculum stultorum of Nigel of Longchamp, The Owl and the Nightingale, Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, The Fox and the Wolf, and the Moral Fabillis of Robert Henryson.

Beast Literature in Medieval Britain

From Aesop to Reynard

Text with Translation, Commentary and Introduction

Ysengrimus

Piero Boitani

The Cambridge Chaucer Companion contains a series of essays by internationally known Chaucer experts, designed to provide a challenging introduction to the poet. The collection is divided between pieces which concentrate squarely on one or more of Chaucer's major poems, identifying themes, styles, moods and tones, and pieces of wider scope which give more general information about Chaucer's literary sources and historical background, or study his experiments with style and structure over a range of poems, or set his works in the context of medieval genres and literary traditions. While introducing a work or works to the reader, these essays also adopt fresh and rigorous lines of critical enquiry which will encourage him or her to develop and place his or her own interpretations. Taken as a whole, the collection establishes a context for Chaucer, discusses the significance of his position within it, and applies to his poetry detailed and frequently innovative analysis. These three functions combine to provide what should become a standard work of reference for students as well as readers who already have some familiarity with Chaucer but wish to achieve a greater understanding of this major English poet and his oeuvre.

The Cambridge Chaucer Companion

The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer is an extensively revised version of the first edition, which has become a classic in the field. This new volume responds to the success of the first edition and to recent debates in Chaucer Studies. Important material has been updated, and new contributions have been commissioned to take into account recent trends in literary theory as well as in studies of Chaucer's works. New chapters cover the literary inheritance traceable in his works to French and Italian sources, his style, as well as new approaches to his work. Other topics covered include the social and literary scene in England in Chaucer's time, and comedy, pathos and romance in the Canterbury Tales. The volume now offers a useful chronology, and the bibliography has been entirely updated to provide an indispensable guide for today's student of Chaucer.

The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer

An investigation of Chaucer's thinking about women, assessed in the light of developments in feminist criticism.

Jill Mann

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