Chaucer and His English Contemporaries: Prologue and Tale in "The Canterbury Tales"
- Author / Editor
- Davenport, W. A.
Chaucer and His English Contemporaries: Prologue and Tale in "The Canterbury Tales"
- Published
- New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
- Physical Description
- x, 257 pp.
- Description
- Chaucer was influenced by his English contemporaries, particularly John Gower, William Langland, Thomas Chester, and the Gawain poet; yet he chose to seek new literary directions. Chaucer was on a pilgrimage of self-discovery and a quest for literary adventure. Departing from conventional methods of composing prologues and tales, he investigated possibilities for shaping multivalent narratives from traditional genres, while exploring the role of the author in relation to text and audience.
- The retrospective Ret, appended to CT at the culmination of his career, may be a rejection of fictions and/or a transition from the earthly to the spiritual journey. Davenport briefly addresses Chaucer's major works but focuses on CT, with special attention to WBT, MLPT, and Ret.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.
- Background and General Criticism.
- Canterbury Tales--General.
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
- Chaucer's Retraction.
- Man of Law and His Tale.
- General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.