This edition provides the general information on Chaucer's life, language, and works that one needs for a first reading of Chaucer, and difficult words and constructions are glossed on the pages. The Appendix contains the materials, including the extensive notes and glossary, for a more thorough understanding of Chaucer's works.

Responding to the lively resurgence of literary formalism, this volume delivers a timely and fresh exploration of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Advancing 'new formalist' approaches, medieval scholars have begun to ask what happens when structure fails to yield meaning, probing the very limits of poetic organization. While Chaucer is acknowledged as a master of form, his work also foregrounds troubling questions about formal agency: the disparate forces of narrative and poetic practice, readerly reception, intertextuality, genre, scribal attention, patronage, and historical change. This definitive collection of essays offers diverse perspectives on Chaucer and a varied analysis of these problems, asking what happens when form is resisted by author or reader, when it fails by accident or by design, and how it can be misleading, errant, or even dangerous.

The facts and fictions that continue to shape our understanding of Chaucer and his place in literary tradition Is Chaucer the father of English literature? The first English poet? Was he a feminist? A political opportunist? A spy? Is Chaucer’s language too difficult for modern readers? 30 Great Myths about Chaucer explores the widely held ideas and opinions about the medieval poet, discussing how ‘myths’ have influenced Chaucer’s reception history and interpretations of his poetry through the centuries. This unique text offers original insights on the character of Chaucer, the nature of his works, the myths that inform our conceptions of Chaucer, and the underlying causes of these myths. Each accessible and engaging chapter focuses on a specific myth, including those surrounding Chaucer’s romantic life, political leanings, religious views, personal struggles, financial challenges, ideas about chivalry, representations of social class, and many others. More than simply correcting inaccurate facts or clarifying common misconceptions about Chaucer, the text delves deeper to address how the myths have shaped the critical interpretation and enduring literary legacy of Chaucer. This innovative volume: Explores how generations of readers continue to shape understanding of Chaucer Highlights the intersection of medievalism and Chaucer studies Helps readers detach myths about Chaucer from critical readings of his works Examines whether myths about Chaucer are based on historical fact or literary interpretation Discusses the history of reading Chaucer in contexts of biography, criticism, and popular culture 30 Great Myths about Chaucer is an indispensable resource for academics, researchers, graduate students, upper-level undergraduates, and general readers with interest in Chaucer and early English and Middle Ages literature.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was the subject of the first volume in the Approaches to Teaching series, published in 1980. But in the past thirty years, Chaucer scholarship has evolved dramatically, teaching styles have changed, and new technologies have created extraordinary opportunities for studying Chaucer. This second edition of Approaches to Teaching Chaucer's Canterbury Tales reflects the wide variety of contexts in which students encounter the poem and the diversity of perspectives and methods instructors bring to it. Perennial topics such as class, medieval marriage, genre, and tale order rub shoulders with considerations of violence, postcoloniality, masculinities, race, and food in the tales. The first section, "Materials," reviews available editions, scholarship, and audiovisual and electronic resources for studying The Canterbury Tales. In the second section, "Approaches," thirty-six essays discuss strategies for teaching Chaucer's language, for introducing theory in the classroom, for focusing on individual tales, and for using digital resources in the classroom. The multiplicity of approaches reflects the richness of Chaucer's work and the continuing excitement of each new generation's encounter with it.

The practice and the representation of flaying in the middle ages and after are considered in this provocative collection.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

Examining the fairies of medieval romance as liminal beings, this book draws on anthropological and philosophical studies of liminality to combine folkloristic insights into the nature of fairies with close readings of selected romance texts. Tracing different meanings and manifestations of liminality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, Sir Launfal, Thomas of Erceldoune and Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice, the volume offers a comprehensive theory of liminality rooted in structuralist anthropology and poststructuralist theory. Arguing that romance fairies both embody and represent the liminal, The Liminality of Fairies posits and answers fundamental theoretical questions about the limits of representation and the relationship between romance hermeneutics and criticism. The interdisciplinary nature of the argument will appeal not just to medievalists and literary critics but also to anthropologists, folklorists as well as scholars working within the fields of cultural history and contemporary literary theory.