The Island Garden: England's Language of Nation from Gildas to Marvell

Author / Editor
Staley, Lynn.

Title
The Island Garden: England's Language of Nation from Gildas to Marvell

Published
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.

Physical Description
x, 345 pp.

Description
Beginning with Gildas' depiction of England as a beautiful garden, explores metaphorical and physical gardens in medieval English cultural history, arguing that Chaucer indicates "awareness of nation as landscape" in CT. Chapters 2 and 3 emphasize that Chaucer employs Langland's peasant "croft, or half acre" as an image of nation in NPT, ClT, KnT, and PF. In Chapter 4, an analysis of the narrative of Susanna and the Elders (Daniel 13) cites ClT, MLT, and ParsT.

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Nun's Priest and His Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Knight and His Tale
Parliament of Fowls
Man of Law and His Tale
Parson and His Tale