Postcolonialisms: Caribbean Rereadings of Medieval English Discourse.

Author / Editor
Lalla, Barbara.

Title
Postcolonialisms: Caribbean Rereadings of Medieval English Discourse.

Published
Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2008.

Physical Description
xvi, 439 pp.

Description
Examines Old and Middle English language and literature in light of postcolonial conditions and theories, particularly those of Caribbean studies, considering issues of cultural contact, vernacularity, competing discourses, power, transgression, and the social and psychological reflexes of the colonized. Includes numerous references to Chaucer and his works, with commentary on masquerade, carnival, and authority in CT, along with extended analysis of the Pardoner as a “discontinuous identity” and a trickster disclosed, with PardPT as “discourse of sliding genres,” shifting lexicons, and “Chaucerian gap-filled contemplation of finite humanity” that “deconstructs” the Pardoner’s “bogus authority.”

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism
Canterbury Tales--General
Pardoner and His Tale