Surveys of English literature inevitably begin with Chaucer and it is difficult to imagine a literature degree which does not require some knowledge of his work. Chaucer's status at the heart of the canon is in fact one of the reasons students find it difficult to study his work: so much has been written on Chaucer, but where should they start? This guide to his life, work and what the critics have said about him supplies most of what the student needs to know.

"Greenery" reaches back and offers new readings of English texts, both known and unfamiliar, informed by eco-criticism. After considering general issues pertaining to green criticism, Greenery moves on to a series of individual chapters arranged by theme (earth, trees, wilds, sea, gardens and fields) which provide individual close readings of selections from such familiar texts as "Malory's Morte D'Arthur," "Chaucer's""Knight's and Franklin's Tales," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Langland's Piers Plowman. "

Starting from a consideration of medieval definitions of the word as both logos and verbum, this reading of Piers Plowmanshows that both scholastic and mystic attitudes to language are at play within the poem. Concepts of authority, authorship, interpretation and translation are explored and it is made clear that these are inextricably linked, both in critical debates and in the text itself. The study progresses towards a conclusion that the full potential of language can be realised only when the desire to express things unambiguously is abandoned and ambiguity itself is allowed to be a...

Humankind has always been fascinated by the world in which it finds itself, and puzzled by its relations to it. Today that fascination is often expressed in what is now called 'green' terms, reflecting concerns about the non-human natural world, puzzlement about the way in which we relate to it, and anxiety about what we, as humans, are doing to it. Literature is often a medium for expressing these reactions and ecocriticism its most appropriate critical mode. Drawing on current political and socio-economical concerns, such 'green criticism' acknowledges that attempts to understand our often...