The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer

336 Pages·2004·1.328 MB·English

by  Piero Boitani, Jill Mann

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TheCambridgeCompaniontoChaucer
TheCambridgeCompaniontoChaucerisarevisedversionofthefirstedition,
which has become a classic in the field. This new volume responds to the
successofthefirsteditionandtorecentdebatesinChaucerstudies.Important
material has been updated, and new contributions have been commissioned
to take into account recent trends in literary theory as well as in studies of
Chaucer’s works, although the structure of the book has basically remained
thesame.ChapterscoversuchtopicsasthesocialandliterarysceneinEngland
in Chaucer’s time, the literary inheritance traceable in his works to French
and Italian sources, comedy, pathos and romance in the Canterbury Tales,
and Chaucer’s style. The volume now includes a useful chronology, and the
bibliographyhasbeenentirelyupdatedtoprovideanindispensableguidefor
today’sstudentofChaucer.
Piero Boitani is Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department
of English at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. He is the author of
many volumes including The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature
(Cambridge,1989),TheShadowofUlysses.FiguresofaMyth(1994)andThe
BibleanditsRewritings(1999).
JillMannisNotreDameProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityofNotreDame
andLifeFellowofGirtonCollege,Cambridge.Shehaswrittenextensivelyon
GeoffreyChaucerandmedievalauthorsincludingLangland,Maloryandthe
Gawain-poet.HermostrecentbookisFeminizingChaucer(2002).

THE CAMBRIDGE
COMPANION TO
CHAUCER
Secondedition
EDITED BY
PIERO BOITANI and JILL MANN
cambridge university press
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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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© Cambridge University Press, 1986, 2003
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withoutthewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublishedinprintformat 2004
isbn-13 978-0-511-22149-1 eBook (Adobe Reader)
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CONTENTS
Listofcontributors pagevii
Preface ix
Noteonthetext xi
Chronology xii
1 ThesocialandliterarysceneinEngland 1
paul strohm
2 Chaucer’sFrenchinheritance 20
ardis butterfield
3 Chaucer’sItalianinheritance 36
david wallace
4 Oldbooksbroughttolifeindreams:theBookofthe
Duchess,theHouseofFame,theParliamentofFowls 58
piero boitani
5 TellingthestoryinTroilusandCriseyde 78
mark lambert
6 ChanceanddestinyinTroilusandCriseydeandthe
Knight’sTale 93
jill mann
7 TheLegendofGoodWomen 112
julia boffey and a. s. g. edwards
v
contents
8 TheCanterburyTales:personaldramaorexperimentsin
poeticvariety? 127
c. david benson
9 TheCanterburyTalesI:romance 143
j. a. burrow
10 TheCanterburyTalesII:comedy 160
derek pearsall
11 TheCanterburyTalesIII:pathos 178
robert worth frank, jr
12 TheCanterburyTalesIV:exemplumandfable 195
a. c. spearing
13 LiterarystructuresinChaucer 214
barry windeatt
14 Chaucer’sstyle 233
christopher cannon
15 Chaucer’spresenceandabsence,1400–1550 251
james simpson
16 NewapproachestoChaucer 270
carolyn dinshaw
17 Furtherreading:aguidetoChaucerstudies 290
joerg o. fichte
Index 307
vi
CONTRIBUTORS
c. david benson,UniversityofConnecticut
julia boffey,QueenMary,UniversityofLondon
piero boitani,UniversityofRome‘LaSapienza’
j. a. burrow,formerlyUniversityofBristol
ardis butterfield,UniversityCollege,London
christopher cannon,UniversityofCambridge
carolyn dinshaw,NewYorkUniversity
a. s. g. edwards,UniversityofVictoria
joerg o. fichte,UniversityofTu¨bingen
†robert worth frank jr,formerlyPennsylvaniaState
University
mark lambert,BardCollege,NewYork
jill mann,UniversityofNotreDame
derek pearsall,HarvardUniversity
james simpson,UniversityofCambridge
a. c. spearing,UniversityofVirginia
paul strohm,ColumbiaUniversity
david wallace,UniversityofPennsylvania
barry windeatt,UniversityofCambridge
vii