Series editors’ preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations and referencing
Introduction
Parti LIFE AND CONTEXTS ” *
(a) Chaucer’s biography … (i) Establishing dates
(n) Family background and early years >v
(m) Education l
(iv) The Ulster household
(v) Royal service and connections with John of Gaunt
(vi) Travels to Italy »\ •>
(vu) The case of Cecily Champaign
(vm) Controller of Customs and the London years
(ix) The Peasants’ Revolt and the move to Kent ~
(x) Time in Kent
(xi) Clerk of the King’s Works
(xu) The return to London the last years
(b) Social, literary and historical contexts (i) War and chivalry
(n) Chivalry ^ .,
(m) Courtly love and marriage j ’ ’
(iv) Marriage and remarriage
(v) Death, plague and revolt
(vi) Church as institution
(vii) Religion and philosophy ’ t
(vm) Literary contexts ^laT 8 •* 1^1
IX XI
xai
1
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Part II WORK
(a) Short verse ft ^ (i) Three early short poems
(n) Other complaints
(in) Boethian ballades and envoys
(b) The dream poems
(i) The Romaunt of the Rose
(n) The Book of the Duchess
(111) The House of Fame
(iv) The Parliament of Fowls
(v) Prologue to The Legend of Good Women
(c) Non-fiction prose
(i) Boece <
(II) A Treatise on the Astrolabe
(in) The Equatone ofPlanetis , > * n
(d) Troilus and Cnseyde
(e) Collections of Tales The Legend of Good Women (i) The Legend of Good Women
(a) The pretext for writing the Legend
(f) Collections of Tales The Canterbury Tales s (i) The’whole’collection manuscripts, texts’r*<
and dates ”<
(n) The General Prologue >
(in) The Knight’s Tale
(iv) The Miller’s Tale
(v) The Reeve’s Tale
(vi) The Cook’s Tale
(VH) The Man of Law’s Tale
(via) The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale r
(ix) The Friar’s Tale
(x) The Summoner’s Tale
(xi) The Clerk’s Tale
(xa) The Merchant’s Tale
(xai) The Squire’s Tale i
(xiv) The Franklin’s Tale t’ (xv) The Physician’s Tale ’ • (xvi) The Pardoner’s Tale
1 (xva) The Shipman’s Tale > « ’”• (xvia) The Prioress’s Tale r (xix) The Tales of Sir Thopas ao&Melibee f, (xx) The Monk’s Tale
(xxi) The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
>
45
47
48
51
55
61
62
65
71
77
81
83
83
86
88
89
100
102
102
106
106
107
110
113
115
117
118
120
123
125
126
128
129
130
132
133
135
136
138
140
141
(xxa) The Second Nun’s Tale (xxin) The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale (xxiv) The Manciple’s Tale (xxv) The Parson’s Tale (xxvi) The Retraction
Part in CRITICISM
(a) Biography
(b) Text, manuscripts, editing »
(c) Chaucer’s language
(d) Sources, literary background, rhetoric and poetics
(e) Narrators, irony and satire
(f) Histoncism, old and new
(g) Politics and ideology (h) Feminism and gender
(i) Imitation, modernisation, allusion
Chronology
Bibliography _/ j> t
Index
r <•*.
142
144
146
148
149
151
156
157
161
162
165
169
172
174
179
183
187
197
SERIES EDITORS7 PREFACE
v;
The Complete Critical Guide to English Literature is a ground-breaking collection of one-volume introductions to the work of the major writers in the English literary canon Each volume in the series offers the reader a comprehensive account of the featured author’s life, of his or her writing and of the ways in which his or her works have been interpreted by literary critics The series is both explanatory and stimulating, it reflects the achievements of state-of-the-art literary-historical research and yet manages to be intellectually accessible for the reader who may be encountering a canonical author’s work for the first time It will be useful for students and teachers of literature at all levels, as well as for the general reader, each book can be read through, or consulted in a companion-style fashion
The aim of The Complete Critical Guide to English Literature is to adopt an approach that is as factual, objective and non-partisan as possible, in order to provide the ’full picture’ for readers and allow them to form their own judgements At the same time, however, the books engage the reader m a discussion of the most demanding questions involved in each author’s life and work Did Pope’s physical condition affect his treatment of matters of gender and sexuality^ Does a feminist reading of Middlemarch enlighten us regarding the book’s presentation of nineteenth-century British society^ Do we deconstruct Beckett’s work, or does he do so himself £ Contributors to this series address such crucial questions, offer potential solutions and recommend further reading for independent study In doing so, they equip the reader for an informed and confident examination of the life and work of key canonical figures and of the critical controversies surrounding them
The aims of the series are reflected m the structure of the books Part I, ’Life and Contexts’, offers a compact biography of the featured author against the background of his or her epoch In Part II, ’Work’, the focus is on the author’s most important works, discussed from a non-partisan, literary-historical perspective, the section provides an account of the works, reflecting a consensus of critical opinion on them, and indicating, where appropriate, areas of controversy These and other issues are taken up again m Part in, ’Criticism’, which offers an account of the critical responses generated by the author’s work Contemporaneous reviews and debates are considered, along with opinions inspired by more recent theoretical approaches, such as New Criticism,
SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE
feminism, Marxism, psychoanalytic criticism, deconstructlon and New Histoncism
The volumes in this series will together constitute a comprehensive reference work offering an up-to-date, user-friendly and reliable account of the heritage of English literature from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. We hope that The Complete Critical Guide to English Literature will become for its readers, academic and non-academic alike, an indispensable source of information and inspiration.
RICHARD BRADFORD , , ( JAN JEDRZEJEWSKI
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to use extracts from the following material
Benson, Larry D (General Editor), The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition Copyright © 1987 by Houghton Mifflin Company Reprinted with permission
Any work of this kind naturally owes a great debt of gratitude to all the critics and scholars mentioned in its pages and cheerfully quarried for information and debate However I am aware of particular debt to the two excellent critical biographies of Chaucer by Derek Brewer and Derek Pearsall, which have frequently provided me with clues while writing this Guide ’I n’am but a lewed compilator’
Liz Thompson at Routledge and the series editors, Jan Jedrzejewski and Richard Bradford, have offered much appreciated, helpful cornments Val Gough gallantly read the complete manuscript I am grateful for her generosity as well as her sharp eye Needless to say, all remaining errors are my own
To friends, family and colleagues whose patience I have tried and ’stedfastnesse’ proved, I can offer only my heartfelt thanks
ABBREVIATIONS AND REFERENCING
Throughout the text, references to Chaucer’s works are from The Riverside Chaucer, general editor Larry Benson (Oxford Oxford University Press 1998), abbreviated as Riverside Individual works are abbreviated as follows
Duchess The Book of the Duchess
House The House of Fame
Legend The Legend of Good Women
Parliament The Parliament of Fowls
Tales The Canterbury Tales
Troilus Troilus and Cnseyde
References are to fragment and line numbers for The Canterbury Tales
and line numbers for all other texts
For all other references, the Harvard system is used; full details of items
cited can be found in the bibliography
Cross-referencing between sections is one of the features of this series Such references are to relevant page numbers and appear in bold type and square brackets, e g [37]