UID:
edocfu_9959240574002883
Format:
1 online resource (525 p.)
ISBN:
0-19-180266-2
,
0-19-100368-9
Content:
As literary scholars have long insisted, an interdisciplinary approach is vital if modern readers are to make sense of works of medieval literature. In particular, rather than reading the works of medieval authors as addressing us across the centuries about some timeless or ahistorical 'human condition', critics from a wide range of theoretical approaches have in recent years shown how the work of poets such as Chaucer constituted engagements with the power relationsand social inequalities of their time. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, medieval historians have played little part in this 'historical
Note:
Includes index.
,
Cover; Historians on Chaucer: The 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales; Copyright; PREFACE; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; CONTENTS; LIST OF FIGURES; NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS; ABBREVIATIONS; Chapter 1: Reading Chaucer: Literature, History, and Ideology; Literature and history; Medieval views of society: deference, mobility, and conflict; Literature and society in fourteenth-century England; Three readings of Chaucer: conservative, sceptical, and open-ended; Chapter 2: Chaucer the Poet and Chaucer the Pilgrim; Chaucer's social circles; Early life; Chaucer at Aldgate; Chaucer the pilgrim
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Chaucer's last yearsChaucer and the republic of scholars; Chapter 3: The Knight; A 'worthy' Knight?; Crusading in the later Middle Ages; The Knight in Spain and North Africa; The Knight and Peter of Cyprus; The Knight and the Teutonic Order; Identifying irony; Chapter 4: The Squire; A squire and a bachelor; 'In chyvachie'; The Squire and the Knight; Chapter 5: The Yeoman; The critical tradition; Being a yeoman; The Yeoman as an aristocratic household servant; The Yeoman and military service; The Yeoman and estates satire; Chapter 6: The Prioress and the Second Nun; Debating the Prioress
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Traditional approaches to the Prioress and female monasticismReassessing late medieval female monasticism; The Prioress as power broker; The problem of female authority; Contrasting the Prioress with the Second Nun; Chapter 7: The Nun's Priest; The unknowable Nun's Priest?; Nuns' priests in the later Middle Ages: some case-studies; Geographical origins and social status; Livings: stipends and rents; Material wealth and piety; Chaucer's Nun's Priest and literary tradition; Chapter 8: The Monk; Approaches to the Monk; The Monk's failings; The Monk and contemporary monasticism
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The Monk and estates satireChaucer and defences of monasticism; Chapter 9: The Friar; An ambiguous pilgrim; An ecclesiological fray; Chaucer as an antifraternal writer; Fabricating the Friar; Huberd and the antifraternal tradition; Chapter 10: The Merchant; A virtuous merchant?; The morality of trade; Chaucer's knowledge of trade and business contacts; The Merchant's business; History, literature, and the Merchant; Chapter 11: The Clerk; The Clerk's ambiguous estate; A 'third power' and 'fourth estate'?; The tools and trade of a clerk; An education in search of a career
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The Clerk of Oxford and the 'worthy clerk' of PaduaAppendix A: Some Manuscripts Associated with the Arts Curriculum at Oxford; Appendix B: John Cobbledik's Books; Chapter 12: The Sergeant of Law; The enigmatic sergeant?; Professionalism; Behind the façade; Remuneration; Social aspirations; Identifying features; Chaucer and the legal profession; Chapter 13: The Franklin; The debate about the Franklin; Franklin, vavasour, and man of law; Chaucer's meaning and audience reception; Chapter 14: The Five Guildsmen; The enigma of the Guildsmen; Forms of fraternity; Perceptions of social change
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Guilds as a subject of medieval debate
,
English
Additional Edition:
ISBN 0-19-968954-7
Additional Edition:
ISBN 1-322-23669-0
Language:
English
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