The World and the Book: A Study of Modern Fiction

Description: Studies modernism in English and French literature from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, focusing on narrative fiction and critical perception and misperceptions of what constitutes modernism. Includes a chapter (pp. 52-99) entitled "Chaucer: The Teller and the Tale" that discusses in HF, LGW, TC, WBP, and NPT the need for interpretation when relying upon either experience or authority; on Chaucer's manipulations of tone and point of view in BD, TC, and NPT; and on the relations between game and fiction in CT. Emphasizes Chaucer's experimentalism throughout, contrasting his practices with those of Dante and William Langland.

Chaucer Subjects: Book of the Duchess; House of Fame; Troilus and Criseyde; Legend of Good Women; Canterbury Tales--General; Wife of Bath and Her Tale; Nun's Priest and His Tale; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations