Norman Blake, Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Sheffield University, is known throughout the world to scholars of mediaeval English Literature. He has published thirty books and 140 articles on subjects as diverse as Old Norse, Old English, Middle English, early printed books, Shakespeare, Historical Linguistics, Stylistics, Grammar, and the cultural context of mediaeval England. He is best known as an authority on Chaucer, Caxton and Shakespeare's language, and is director of The Canterbury Tales Project, based in the University of Sheffield, which is a scheme to put all the manuscript and early printed versions of the poem onto computer and to issue the transcribed texts on CD-ROM. Norman has lectured and taught in many countries, and is a frequent contributor to international conferences. He has been a Teaching Quality Assessor in universities in Britain and elsewhere. He is also well known (among many other things) for his work as member of the Council of the Early English Text Society, Editor for the Index of Middle English Prose, General Editor of Macmillan's Language of Literature series, and as Secretary of the European Society of the Study of English. Friends and colleagues of this approachable and widely respected scholar have come together to mark his 65th birthday in spring 1999 by contributing to this volume. The essays-on Chaucer, Caxton and related aspects of Middle English-are not only a tribute to Norman's work but also a valuable contribution to Middle English studies in their own right.

Using extant manuscripts as his starting point, Edward Condren argues that the overall design of the Canterbury Tales has a structural parallel with Dante's Commedia. He demonstrates how individual tales support this design and how the design itself confers rich meaning, in some instances investing with new complexity tales that otherwise have been little appreciated.

A retelling of five of Chaucer's classic tales in simplified language for new readers. Includes activities to enhance reading comprehension and improve vocabulary.

What were the medieval stylistic, aesthetic, and literary conventions that Chancer drew upon and knew that his audience would understand? In this rich study Mr. Robertson has included 118 illustrations-of medieval sculpture, cathedral interiors, illuminated manuscripts, paintings, ornamental devices and decorations-to show how these conventions affected the visual arts of Chaucer's time. Special attention is directed to fundamental differences between medieval and modern attitudes toward poetry, and to the significance of these differences for an approach to medieval art. By placing Chaucer fully in his own time, Mr. Robertson establishes new perspectives for understanding Chaucer’s poetry. His book is like a rich tapestry weaving together many threads. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"Eleven essays that explore how modern scholarship interprets Chaucer's writings"--Provided by publisher.

This volume presents a feminist approach to the Canterbury Tales, investigating the ways in which the tensions and contradictions found within the broad contours of medieval gender discourse write themselves into Chaucer's text. Four discourses of medieval masculinity are examined, which simultaneously reinforce and resist one another: heroic or chivalric, Christian, courtly love, and emerging humanist models. Each chapter attempts to negotiate both contemporary assumptions of gender construction, and essentialist readings of gender common to the middle ages; throughout, the author argues that the Canterbury Tales offer a sophisticated discussion of masculinity, and that it strongly indicts some of the prevalent medieval notions of ideal masculinity while still remaining firmly homosocial and homophobic. The book concludes that on the question of gender issues, the Tales are best studied as male-authored texts containing representations and negotiations revealing much about late medieval masculinities. Dr ANNE LASKAYA teaches in the English Department at the University of Oregon.

A collection of magical Italian folk and fairy tales—most in English for the first time The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales presents twenty magical stories published between 1875 and 1914, following Italy’s political unification. In those decades of political and social change, folklorists collected fairy tales from many regions of the country while influential writers invented original narratives in standard Italian, drawing on traditional tales in local dialects, and translated others from France. This collection features a range of these entertaining jewels from such authors as Carlo Collodi, most celebrated for the novel Pinocchio, and Domenico Comparetti, regarded as the Italian Grimm, to Grazia Deledda, the only Italian woman to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature. With one exception, all of these tales are appearing in English for the first time. The stories in this volume are linked by themes of metamorphosis: a man turns into a lion, a dove, and an ant; a handsome youth emerges from a pig’s body; and three lovely women rise out of the rinds of pomegranates. There are also more introspective transformations: a self-absorbed princess learns about manners, a melancholy prince finds joy again, and a complacent young woman discovers gratitude. Cristina Mazzoni provides a comprehensive introduction that situates the tales in their cultural and historical context. The collection also includes period illustrations and biographical notes about the authors. Filled with adventures, supernatural and fantastic events, and brave and flawed protagonists, The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales will delight, surprise, and astonish.

"More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life--yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination. Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early circulation of his writings, this innovative biography documents a series of vivid episodes, moving from the commercial wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence and the kingdom of Navarre, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side. The narrative recounts Chaucer's experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter's nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan, where he encountered the writings of Dante and Boccaccio. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer's writings, taking the reader to the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde, the gardens of the dream visions, and the peripheries and thresholds of The Canterbury Tales. By exploring the places Chaucer visited, the buildings he inhabited, the books he read, and the art and objects he saw, this landmark biography tells the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant's son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales." -- Publisher's description.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated literary work of medieval England, portrays the culture of the late Middle Ages as a deeply commercial environment, replete with commodities and dominated by market relationships. However, the market is not the only mode of exchange in Chaucer’s world or in his poem. Chaucer’s Gifts reveals the gift economy at work in the tales. Applying important recent advances in anthropological gift theory, it illuminates and explains this network of exchanges and obligations. Chaucer’s Gifts argues that the world of the Canterbury Tales harbours deep commitments to reciprocity and obligation which are at odds with a purely commercial culture, and demonstrates how the market and commercial relations are not natural, eternal, or inevitable – an essential lesson if we are to understand Chaucer’s world or our own.