Chaucer and his Readers: Imagining the Author in Late-Medieval England

Description: Examines Chaucer's reception in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and its relation to the historical development of poetic identity. In their responses to and depictions of Chaucer, such writers as Lydgate, Clanvowe, James I, Hawes, and Skelton, and such compositors and editors as Shirley and Caxton, mark stages in the transition from medieval to Renaissance attitudes toward literature, literary authority, and readership.; Chaucer was first a familiar model and mentor, only later becoming a source of moral edification and, later yet, a key figure in the literary past imagined by English humanists. Lerer pays particular attention to SqT, ClT, LGWP, Sted, and Adam as models of and for reading.; Revised slightly, chapter five (pp. 147-75) reprinted in Daniel J. Pinti, "Writings After Chaucer" (New York and London: Garland, 1998), pp. 243-79.

Chaucer Subjects: Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.; Squire and His Tale.; Clerk and His Tale.; Legend of Good Women.; Lak of Stedfastnesse.; Adam Scriveyn.