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Late-Medieval Prison Writing and the Politics of Autobiography
Summers, Joanna.
Oxford : Clarendon, 2004.
Summers assesses the commonalities and differences among Usk's "The Testament of Love," "The King's Quair" of James I of Scotland, Charles d'Orléans' "English Book of Love," the "Testimony" of William Thorpe, the "Trial" of Richard Wyche, and…
The Canterbury Tales
McCaughrean, Geraldine.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1991.
Free adaptation of CT for children: GP, KnT, MilT, NPT, RvT, ClT, WBT, PardT, Th, FranT, ManT, CYT, FrT, and MerT. Provides links for the Tales in the above order and concludes with an arrival at Canterbury. First published in 1984; a Penguin Film…
The Bible and Its Rewriting
Boitani, Piero.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.
Studies of how Scriptural narratives and their themes have been "re-Scriptured" in particular works of Western literary tradition. Chapter 3 (pp. 77-100) explores how NPT prompts and resists the exegetical potential in reading and leads to…
Reading Dreams : The Interpretation of Dreams from Chaucer to Shakespeare
Brown, Peter.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.
Six essays by various authors on dreams in medieval and early modern literature. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Reading Dreams under Alternative Title.
The Boundaries of the Human in Medieval English Literature
Yamamoto, Dorothy.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2000.
Explores relationships of the human body to human identity in Middle English literature, focusing on representations of the animal world and of "wild men" as they define the margins (and hence the center) of the human. Includes discussions of…
Socioliterary Practice in Late Medieval England
Barr, Helen.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.
Seven interrelated studies and an afterword that explore "socioliterary practice," considering literature as a material form of social behavior in "internal and dialectical relationship" with the institutions and conventions that shape it and that it…
Gods, Heroes, and Kings : The Battle for Mythic Britain
Fee, Christopher R., with David E. Leeming.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.
Surveys the multicultural nature of medieval British literature, which combines Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Christian influences. Introduces the myths and heroic figures of pre-Christian cultures through synopses of various narratives and…
The Oxford Companion to Chaucer
Gray, Douglas, ed.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2003.
A single-volume encyclopedia with more than 2,000 entries, composed by a team of thirteen contributors and the editor. Alphabetized entries include each of Chaucer's works, important sources and analogues, character and place names, select…
Medieval Narrative : An Introduction
Davenport, Tony.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004.
Davenport describes several categories of medieval narrative, focusing on English literature, particularly Chaucer. Discusses didactic narratives (exempla and fables), historical accounts (chronicle, epic, romance), comic tales (fabliaux and…
The Grounds of English Literature
Cannon, Christopher.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004.
Cannon combines Marxist and Hegelian ideas of "form" to argue that "form is that which thought and things have in common" (5), enabling a valuation of form as a record of thinking in and about a culture. Formalist criticism (in this sense) of Middle…
Chaucer : An Oxford Guide
Ellis, Steve, ed.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Thirty-six essays on individual topics, plus an introduction (by Ellis) and a postscript (Julian Wasserman). Part 1 (historical contexts): Chaucer's life (Ruth Evans), society and politics (S. H. Rigby), nationhood (Ardis Butterfield), London (C.…
Readings in Medieval Texts : Interpreting Old and Middle English Literature
Johnson, David F., and Elaine Treharne, eds.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Twenty-five essays by various contributors, addressing individual works or genres and designed for "students undertaking courses in Old and Middle English." The book includes recurrent references to Chaucer's works. For two essays that pertain to his…
Textual Subjectivity : The Encoding of Subjectivity in Medieval Narratives and Lyrics
Spearing, A. C.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Spearing counters the assumption that all medieval narration implies a narrator. Medieval literature is permeated with subjectivity, but it is often "subjectless subjectivity," better compared to painting than to oral storytelling. Similar to…
Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reform
Walker, Greg.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Walker seeks to understand reactions to the rise of tyranny during the rule of Henry VIII-- the "unprecedented changes of the 1530s and 1540s"--seen through records left by "poets, prose-writers, scholars, and dramatists who wrote, revised, edited,…
Print Culture and the Medieval Author: Chaucer, Lydgate, and Their Books, 1473-1557
Gillespie, Alexandra.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006.
Analyzing the impact of print on already-existing ideas of authorship, Gillespie argues "that the medieval author was a mechanism for ordering the new meanings of texts in print," even when the understanding of that author was a result, or…
Middle English
Strohm, Paul, ed.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2007.
Twenty-nine essays by various authors, each essay with suggestions for further reading. The volume has three indices: Medieval Authors and Titles; Names; and Subject. It seeks "to avoid settled consensus in favour of unresolved debate, to prefer the…
The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography
Pearsall, Derek.
Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1992.
Traces Chaucer's life and the development of his works in relation to court life and the affairs of contemporary London. Divides his life into six periods of professional activity and explores his changing status as a public servant, the growth of…
A Book of Middle English
Burrow, J. A., and Thorlac Turville-Petre, eds.
Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1992. 2d ed. 1996. 3rd ed. 2005.
An introduction to Middle English language, designed as a textbook with discussions of history, phonology, lexis, grammar, syntax, and meter. Includes a reader of fourteen (non-Chaucerian) texts, with brief notes and glossary.
Troilus and Criseyde : A New Translation
Windeatt, Barry, trans.
Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Prose translation of TC aimed at the general reader, with introduction (30 pp.), explanatory notes (35 pp.), and indices of proverbs and names. The introduction comments on themes, date, sources, genre, and characterization.
Shakespeare's Reading
Miola, Robert S.
Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press. , 2000.
Describes the literature with which Shakespeare was familiar, as reflected in his works, their sources, their allusions, etc. Discusses the relationship of Two Noble Kinsmen to KnT and of Troilus and Cressida to TC.
Chaucer and the Making of Optical Space
Brown, Peter.
Oxford and New York : Peter Lang, 2007.
Brown traces classical and medieval study of optics in various kinds of writing, arguing that in the late Middle Ages the science of "perspectiva" became part of intellectual consciousness, influencing Chaucer and several of his models (Jean de Meun,…
Chaucer's Universe
North, J. D.
Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1988.
North reveals a cryptic extension to Chaucerian criticism: a celestial allegory. Part 1 is a guide to late-medieval understanding of the planets and their influences on humans, physiologically and morally, including chapters on the spheres, the…
The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse
Opie, Iona and Peter, eds.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
An anthology of British narrative verse, ranging from Chaucer to W. H. Auden; includes Middle English versions of NPT ("The Cock and the Hen") and PardT ("Death and the Three Revellers"), with bottom-of-the-page glosses and diacritical marks to…
Electronic edition of "The Riverside Chaucer"
Edmonds, David, and Lou Burnard.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
SGML-encoded version of the texts of "The Riverside Chaucer" (SAC 11 (1989), no. 11), without notes or other apparatus, readable on a personal computer or Macintosh.
The Wife of Bath, by Geoffrey Chaucer
Croft, Steven, ed.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
A school-text Middle English edition of WBPT and the GP description of the Wife, with notes and glosses after the text, along with comments on critical approaches and contexts and on Chaucer's language and pronunciation; pedagogical activities and…
