The Shorter Poems

Author / Editor
Minnis, A. J.,with V. J. Scattergood and J. J. Smith.

Title
The Shorter Poems

Published
Oxford:
New York: Clarendon;
Oxford University Press, 1995.

Physical Description
xiii, 578 pp.

Series
Oxford Guides to Chaucer.

Description
Describes critical approaches to Chaucer's poetry (except CT and TC) and the crucial issues they have disclosed.
Prefatory chapters by Minnis assess the social and cultural contexts of poetry in the late fourteenth century and the formal and thematic issues of the love vision and courtly love.
Subsequent chapters on BD, HF, PF, and LGW (also by Minnis) summarize critical opinion on date, style and rhetoric, structure, sources, genre, and interpretive themes in the respective works.
In a chapter on ABC, Chaucer's complaints, his lyrics, and his begging poems, Scattergood considers questions of canonicity and literary tradition, as well as interpretive approaches.
The volume includes an appendix, by Smith, on Chaucer's language, including spelling, pronunciation, prosody, vocabulary, and verbal play.

Contributor
Scattergood, V. J.
Smith, J. J.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Language and Word Studies.
Book of the Duchess.
House of Fame.
Parliament of Fowls.
Legend of Good Women.
Lyrics and Short Poems.