Word as Bond in English Literature from the Middle Ages to the Restoration
- Author / Editor
- Canfield, J. Douglas.
Word as Bond in English Literature from the Middle Ages to the Restoration
- Published
- Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
- Physical Description
- xviii, 338 pp.
- Description
- Treats selected major figures and works of English literature from "Beowulf" to Congreve, concentrating on the feudalistic idea of the "pledged word," as a shaping "master trope." By elevating the word to sign, Canfield applies theories of Derrida, Lacan, Girard, Barthes, and Foucault, structuring the material according to two "ratios"--the tragic closure or the comic, each of which is further divided into "four genres: comedy, romance, tragedy, and satire."
- These in turn are divided into subgenres, some represented by Chaucer: PardT is s social comedy; WBT, a subversive comedy;FranT, a tragicomic romance; TC, a personal tragedy; and KnT, an absurdist satire.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.
- Pardoner and His Tale.
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
- Franklin and His Tale.
- Troilus and Criseyde.
- Knight and His Tale.