The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages: Language Theory, Mythology, and Fiction
- Author / Editor
- Gellrich, Jesse M.
The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages: Language Theory, Mythology, and Fiction
- Published
- Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985.
- Description
- Using insights of Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Barthes, and Derrida, and treating the history of textuality from Augustine to Chaucer, Gellrich examines the relationship of literature to other medieval cultural forms that are often expressed in the metaphor of the book. He sees parallels between the book or the text and architecture, scholasticism, music, etc.
- In Chapter 5, "The Origin of Language Reconsidered: Chaucer's House of Fame" (pp. 167-201), Gellrich examines the conflict in Chaucer's sources to illustrate the ambiguous nature of fame, Chaucer's indeterminacy, and transcendence through faith. HF counterfeits both learning and colloquialism and is an experiment in "structure, authority, and determinacy of meaning."
- Chapter 6, "Problems of Misreading: The 'Prologue' to the 'Legend of Good Women'" (pp. 202-23) examines the games Chaucer plays on the finges of LGW and the question of the indeterminacy of "soth," "fals," and reader response. LGWP develops the disjunction between "the God of Love's demands on the poet and their fulfillment."
- In Chapter 7 (pp. 224-47), "Interpreting the 'Naked Text' in the General Prologue to "The Canterbury Tales," Gellrich argues that Chaucer questions the nature of poetic structure by not completing CT. Concentrating on GP, Gellrich treats issues of structure, voice, persona, irony, order, sequence,and closure.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.
- House of Fame.
- Legend of Good Women.
- General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales