Chaucer and the Late Medieval World: The Poet and the Late Medieval World

ISBN-13: 9780312224660 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 294 str.

Lillian M. Bisson

Opis

Divided between the outer world of affairs and the inner world of poetic insight, Chaucer sought to make sense of his changing, conflicting world. In Chaucer and the Late Medieval World, Lillian M. Bisson examines the societal issues that the poet explored in his work. She focuses on three major areas of medieval life - religion, class/commerce, and gender - all of which were experiencing considerable change in the fourteenth century. The book builds a bridge between an unmediated encounter with Chaucer's texts and the more specialized discussions found in most contemporary criticism, and provides a detailed analysis of Christian culture. By placing each topic in a broad cultural context, Chaucer and the Late Medieval World helps the reader to better understand the questions that teased Chaucer's imagination into poetry and to enter into the cultural conversation with which he engaged his audience.

Spis treści

Preface PART I: THE POET AND HIS WORLD Double Vision: The Gothic Mind's Eye The Role of the Poet: Minstrel, Maker, or More? PART II: RELIGION The Church in Turmoil: The Hierarchy and Heresy The Quest for Perfection: The Regular Clergy The Road to Canterbury: Pilgrimage, Saints, and Popular Religion PART III: CLASS AND COMMERCE Aristocratic Ideals: Conflicting Chivalric Ideologies The Cry of the Poor: Unrest and Rebellion Among the Peasants All That Glitters: Trade, Industry, and the Money Economy PART IV: GENDER AND SEXUALITY The Face in the Mirror: What Manner Woman? Till Death Due Us Part: Love, Marriage, and Sexuality CONCLUSION A Zone of Freedom: Carnival as the Emblem of an Age Bibliography Index

O autorze

LILLIAN M. BISSON is Professor of English and Chair of the Literature and Languages Department at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.