This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to...

Brewer brings to his task a full scholarly knowledge of the sources of Chaucerian biography... Of obvious value to students reading Chaucer and to all who read him for pleasure; more advanced scholars will also find in it much to provoke thought and advance understanding.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENTChaucer's tales, rich in comedy and pathos, have an immediate appeal; they draw freely and vividly from the romance and colour of the times in which he lived, and his world that of the second half of the 14th century is rich in cultural interest. It was a time of new exploration and new...

Many famous stories, from the Old Testament, medieval romance and folktale, to Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies and even some great novels, present apparent inconsistencies or absurdities when judged as plausible representations of 'reality'. Yet the experience of many generations of readers and listeners is that such stories take a powerful hold on the imagination and memory, and create a strong impression on coherent significance. Symbolic Stories shows why the structure of these tales is so significant, and why they are repeated, both in the original and with variations, down the ages....