These original essays mean to provoke rather than reassure, to challenge rather than codify. Instead of summarizing existing knowledge after the fashion of the now-ubiquitous literary 'companions, ' these essays aim at opening fresh discussion; instead of emphasizing settled consensus they direct their readers to areas of enlivened and unresolved debate. Although 'major authors' such as Chaucer and Langland are richly represented, many little-known and neglected texts are considered as well. Analysis is devoted not only to self-sufficient works, but to the general conditions of textual...
These original essays mean to provoke rather than reassure, to challenge rather than codify. Instead of summarizing existing knowledge after the fashi...
Taking points of departure from Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock, Paul Strohm deploys superior powers of textual and linguistic analysis to uncover a 'pre-Machiavellian moment': an historical phase which saw political discourse deployed with unprecedented slipperiness and subtlety; a time when it was thought possible not just to follow Fortune, but to jam her turning wheel. That this should have occurred in the fifteenth century, a period regarded as too dull, tradition-bound, or chaotic for significant discursive innovation, is just one of the surprises of this remarkable book....
Taking points of departure from Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock, Paul Strohm deploys superior powers of textual and linguistic analysis to uncover...
Paul Strohm's strikingly original . . . book offers rich opportunities for thinking about the relationships between textual analysis and historical understanding. . . . His] analysis of Lancastrian texts and imagination will undoubtedly prove immensely energizing in medieval English literary and cultural studies. If its full implications for medieval history are also recognized and explored, its impact will be even more profound and enduring. -Review of English Studies
Paul Strohm's strikingly original . . . book offers rich opportunities for thinking about the relationships between textual analysis and historical un...
Strohen's collection of 13 papers, most published here for the first time, aims to reunite literary theory with the text and proposes a form of practical theory' which places the text at the centre of analysis and allows the text a relationship with the outside world.
Strohen's collection of 13 papers, most published here for the first time, aims to reunite literary theory with the text and proposes a form of practi...
Strohen's collection of 13 papers, most published here for the first time, aims to reunite literary theory with the text and proposes a form of practical theory' which places the text at the centre of analysis and allows the text a relationship with the outside world.
Strohen's collection of 13 papers, most published here for the first time, aims to reunite literary theory with the text and proposes a form of practi...
Each generation finds in Chaucer's works the concerns and themes of its own era. But what of Chaucer's contemporaries? For whom was he writing? With what expectations would his original audience have approached his works? In what terms did he and his audience understand their society, and how does his poetry embody a view of society?
These are some of the questions Paul Strohm addresses in this innovative look at the historical Chaucer. Fourteenth-century English society was, he reminds us, in a state of accelerating transition: feudalism was yielding to capitalism, and traditional...
Each generation finds in Chaucer's works the concerns and themes of its own era. But what of Chaucer's contemporaries? For whom was he writing? Wit...
These original essays mean to provoke rather than reassure, to challenge rather than codify. Instead of summarizing existing knowledge after the fashion of the now-ubiquitous literary 'companions, ' these essays aim at opening fresh discussion; instead of emphasizing settled consensus they direct their readers to areas of enlivened and unresolved debate. Although 'major authors' such as Chaucer and Langland are richly represented, many little-known and neglected texts are considered as well. Analysis is devoted not only to self-sufficient works, but to the general conditions of textual...
These original essays mean to provoke rather than reassure, to challenge rather than codify. Instead of summarizing existing knowledge after the fashi...
After the dethronement and subsequent murder of Richard II, the usurping Lancastrian dynasty faced an exceptional challenge. Interrupting a long period of Plantagenet rule, Henry IV and Henry V needed not only to establish physical possession of the English throne, but to occupy it symbolically as well. In this boldly revisionary book, Paul Strohm provides a new account of the Lancastrian revolution and its aftermath. Integrating techniques of literary and historical analysis, he explores the new dynasty's quest for legitimacy and the importance of symbolic activity to the making of kingship....
After the dethronement and subsequent murder of Richard II, the usurping Lancastrian dynasty faced an exceptional challenge. Interrupting a long perio...
"The paradox of the lie that might as well be true," writes Paul Strohm, "must interest anyone who seeks to understand texts in history or the historical influence of texts." In these seven essays, all recent and most published here for the first time, the author examines historical and literary texts from fourteenth-century England. He not only demonstrates the fictionality of narrative and documentary sources, but also argues that these fictions are themselves fully historical. Together the essays institute a dialogue between texts and events that restores historical documents and...
"The paradox of the lie that might as well be true," writes Paul Strohm, "must interest anyone who seeks to understand texts in history or the hist...
"The paradox of the lie that might as well be true," writes Paul Strohm, "must interest anyone who seeks to understand texts in history or the historical influence of texts." In these seven essays, all recent and most published here for the first time, the author examines historical and literary texts from fourteenth-century England. He not only demonstrates the fictionality of narrative and documentary sources, but also argues that these fictions are themselves fully historical. Together the essays institute a dialogue between texts and events that restores historical documents and...
"The paradox of the lie that might as well be true," writes Paul Strohm, "must interest anyone who seeks to understand texts in history or the hist...
