1st Edition

Chaucer at Work The Making of The Canterbury Tales

By Peter Brown Copyright 1994
    198 Pages
    by Routledge

    198 Pages
    by Routledge

    Chaucer at Work is a new kind of introduction to the Canterbury Tales. It avoids excessive amounts of background information and involves the reader in the discovery of how Chaucer composed his famous work. It presents a series of sources and contexts to be considered in conjunction with key passages from Chaucer's poems. It includes sets of questions to encourage the reader to examine the text in detail and to build on his or her observations. This well-informed and practical guide will prove invaluable reading to those studying medieval literature at undergraduate level and English literature at A level.

    PART 1: The general prologue: the pilgrimage controversy  Chaucer's pilgrimage. Two middlemen  PART 2: The Knight's tale: a question of context  The idea of imprisonment  The vagaries of fortune; the bonds of love 
    PART 3: The Miller's tale: the portrait of Alisoun  Domestic drama  PART 4: The Wife of Bath's prologue and tale: inventing the Wife of Bath  The quest for "gentillesse"  PART 5: The Merchant's tale: what's in a name?  January's garden  PART 6: The Franklin's tale: the virtues of patience  Dorigen's rocks  PART 7: The Pardoner's prologue and tale: the portrait of hypocrisy; dicing with death  PART 8: The Nun's Priest's tale: the play of language; taking the moral

    Biography

    Peter Brown