Mythodologies challenges the implied methodology in contemporary studies in the humanities. We claim, at times, that we gather facts or what we will call evidence, and from that form hypotheses and conclusions. Of course, we recognize that the sum total of evidence for any argument is beyond comprehension; therefore, we construct, and we claim, preliminary hypotheses, perhaps to organize the chaos of evidence, or perhaps simply to find it; we might then see (we claim) whether that evidence challenges our tentative hypotheses. Ideally, we could work this way. Yet the history of scholarship and our own practices suggest we do nothing of the kind. Rather, we work the way we teach our composition students to write: choose or construct a thesis, then invent the evidence to support it. This book has three parts, examining such methods and pseudo-methods of invention in medieval studies, bibliography, and editing. Part One, "Noster Chaucer," looks at examples in Chaucer studies, such as the notion that Chaucer wrote iambic pentameter, and the definition of a canon in Chaucer. "Our" Chaucer has, it seems, little to do with Chaucer himself, and in constructing this entity, Chaucerians are engaged largely in self-validation of their own tradition. Part Two, "Bibliography and Book History," consists of three studies in the field of bibliography: the recent rise in studies of annotations; the implications of presumably neutral terminology in editing, a case-study in cataloguing. Part Three, "Cacophonies: A Bibliographical Rondo," is a series of brief studies extending these critiques to other areas in the humanities. It seems not to matter what we talk about: meter, book history, the sex life of bonobos. In all of these discussions, we see the persistence of error, the intractability of uncritical assumptions, and the dominance of authority over evidence. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Part I. Noster Chaucerus Chap. 1. How Many Chaucerians Does it Take to Count to Eleven? The Meter of Kynaston's 1635 Translation of Troilus and Criseyde and its Implications for Chaucerian Metrics Chap. 2. Chaucer's "Rude Times" Chap. 3. Meditation on Our Chaucer and the History of the Canon Coda. Godwin's Portrait of Chaucer Part II. Bibliography and Book History Chap. 4. The Singularities of Books and Reading . Chap. 5. Editorial Projecting Chap. 6. The Haunting of Suckling's Fragmenta Aurea (1646) Coda. T. F. Dibdin: The Rhetoric of Bibliophilia Part III. Cacophonies: A Bibliographic Rondo Fakes and Frauds: The "Flewelling Antiphonary" and Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius Modernity and Middle English The Quantification of Readability The Elephant Paper and Histories of Medieval Drama The Pynson Chaucer(s) of 1526: Bibliographical Circularity Margaret Mead and the Bonobos Reading My Library

An important collection of essays which will be of interest to teachers and students of Chaucer.

Provides a rich and varied reference resource, illuminating the different contexts for Chaucer and his work.

Chaucerian scholarship has long been intrigued by the nature and consequences of Chaucer’s exposure to Italian culture during his professional visits to Italy in the 1370s. In this volume, leading scholars take a new and more holistic view of Chaucer’s engagement with Italian cultural practice, moving beyond the traditional ‘sources and analogues’ approach to reveal the varied strands of Italian literature, art, politics and intellectual life that permeate Chaucer’s work. Each chapter examines from different angles links between Chaucerian texts and Italian intellectual models, including poetics, chorography, visual art, classicism, diplomacy and prophecy. Echoes of Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio reverberate throughout the book, across a rich and diverse landscape of Italian cultural legacies. Together, the chapters cover a wide range of theory and reference, while sharing a united understanding of the rich impact of Italian culture on Chaucer’s narrative art.

A study of the language of Chaucerian manuscripts, printed editions and Chaucer's 15th century followers. Winner of the 2005 Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590 The manuscript copies of Chaucer's works preserve valuable information concerning Chaucer's linguistic practices and the ways in which scribes responded to these. This book draws on recent developments in Middle English dialectology, textual criticism and the application of computers to manuscript studies to assess the evidence Chaucerian manuscripts provide for reconstructing Chaucer's own language and his linguistic environment. This book considershow scribes, editors and Chaucerian poets transmitted and updated Chaucer's language and the implications of this for our understanding of Chaucerian book production and reception, and the processes of linguistic change in the fifteenth century. Winner of the 2005 Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590 SIMON HOROBIN lectures on English language at the University of Glasgow.

Chaucer's interest in individuality was strikingly modern. He was aware of the pressures on individuality exerted by the past and by society - by history. Chaucer investigated not just the idea of history but the historical world intimately related to his own political and literary career. This book has shaped the way that Chaucer is read.

Chaucer and Religious Controversies in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras adopts a comparative, boundary-crossing approach to consider one of the most canonical of literary figures, Geoffrey Chaucer. The idea that Chaucer is an international writer raises no eyebrows. Similarly, a claim that Chaucer's writings participate in English confessional controversies in his own day and afterward provokes no surprise. This book breaks new ground by considering Chaucer's Continental interests as they inform his participation in religious debates concerning such subjects as female spirituality and Lollardy. Similarly, this project explores the little-studied ways in which those who took religious vows, especially nuns, engaged with works by Chaucer and in the Chaucerian tradition. Furthermore, while the early modern "Protestant Chaucer" is a familiar figure, this book explores the creation and circulation of an early modern "Catholic Chaucer" that has not received much attention. This study seeks to fill gaps in Chaucer scholarship by situating Chaucer and the Chaucerian tradition in an international textual environment of religious controversy spanning four centuries and crossing both the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. This book presents a nuanced analysis of the high stakes religiopolitical struggle inherent in the creation of the canon of English literature, a struggle that participates in the complex processes of national identity formation in Europe and the New World alike.

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

The author's aim is to "restore to the reading of the poem a background of medieval meanings familiar enough to Chaucer’s contemporary reader but almost lost to the modem." Mr. Koonce believes that fame was a clearly defined Christian concept in the Middle Ages, and his interpretation of Chaucer’s allegory proceeds from that central focus. Originally published in 1966. 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.