Chaucer's Poetics and the Modern Reader

Author / Editor
Jordan, Robert M.

Title
Chaucer's Poetics and the Modern Reader

Published
Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1987.

Description
Advising Chaucerians to abandon literary interpretation in favor of poetics, Jordan catalogues the genres, modes, and discursive forms of a particular Chaucerian text, first pointing out their incompatibility and then noting the failure of univocal interpretations to regulate such a gallimaufry of verbal figures and formal structures.
There is only linguistic surface in Chaucer's works--no thematic, dramatic, or psychological depth requiring interpretation. Jordan discusses HF, BD, PF, LGW, GP, PardT, NPT, ManT, ParsT, and Ret.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Book of the Duchess.
Parliament of Fowls.
Legend of Good Women.
Canterbury Tales--General.
House of Fame.