Politics, Prodigality, and the Reception of Chaucer's 'Purse'

Author / Editor
Prendergast, Thomas A.

Title
Politics, Prodigality, and the Reception of Chaucer's 'Purse'

Published
William F. Gentrup, ed. Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods ([Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 63-76.

Series
Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, no. 1.

Description
Surveys "legends" about Chaucer's prodigality, from Thomas Usk's "Testament of Love" to early editions of Purse and modern critical reception of the poem. Editions of Purse and critical responses seek to defend Chaucer "from charges of political opportunism," casting him variously as a prodigal, a "'pure' unsullied poet," and a "self-serving though loyal subject."

Contributor
Gentrup, William F.,ed.

Alternative Title
Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods.

Chaucer Subjects
Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse.
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations.