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This new introduction to Chaucer has been radically rewritten since the previous edition which was published in 1984. The book is a controversial and modern restatement of some of the traditional views on Chaucer, and seeks to present a rounded introduction to his life, cultural setting and works. Professor Brewer takes into account recent literary criticism, both challenging new ideas and using them in his analysis of Chaucer's work. Above all, there is a strong emphasis on leading the reader to understand and enjoy the poetry and prose, and to try to understand Chaucer's values which are often seen to oppose modern principles. A New Introduction to Chaucer is the result of Derek Brewer's distinguished career spanning fifty years of research and study of Chaucer and contemporary scholarship and criticism. New interpretations of many of the poems are presented including a detailed account of the Book of the Duchess. Derek Brewer's fresh and narrative style of writing will appeal to all who are interested in Chaucer, from sixth-form and undergraduate students who are new to Chaucer's work through to more advanced students and lecturers.
Essays on the many key aspects of medieval literature, reflecting the significant impact of Professor Derek Brewer. Derek Brewer (1923-2008) was one of the most influential medievalists of the twentieth century, first through his own publications and teaching, and later as the founder of his own academic publishing firm. His working life of some sixty years, from the late 1940s to the 2000s, saw enormous advances in the study of Chaucer and of Arthurian romance, and of medieval literature more generally. He was in the forefront of such changes, and his understandings ofChaucer and of Malory remain at the core of the modern critical mainstream. Essays in this collection take their starting po...
A comprehensive survey of one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages.
An investigation of the non-human world in the Exeter Book riddles, drawing on the exciting new approaches of eco-criticism and eco-theology.
An overlooked aspect of the iconography of the Annunciation investigated - Mary's book.
New Medieval Literatures is an annual of work on medieval textual cultures, aiming to engage with intellectual and cultural pluralism in the Middle Ages and now. Its scope is inclusive of work across the theoretical, archival, philological, and historicist methodologies associated with medieval literary studies, and embraces the range of European cultures, capaciously defined. Essays in this volume engage with a wide range of subject matter, from as far back as Livy (d.c.AD 12/18) to Erwin Panofsky (d. 1968). They demonstrate that medieval textual cultures is a radically negotiable category and that medieval understandings of the past were equally diverse and unstable.They reflect on relatio...
An examination of the rubricated letters in the Morte makes a convincing case for the design being by Malory himself. The red-ink names that decorate the Winchester manuscript of Malory's Morte Darthur are striking; yet until now, no-one has asked why the rubrication exists. This book explores the uniqueness and thematic significance of the physical layout of the Morte in its manuscript context, arguing that the layout suggests, and the correlations between manuscript design and narrative theme confirm, that the striking arrangement is likely to have been the product of authorial design rather than something unusual dreamed up by patron, scribe, reader, or printer. The introduction offers a ...
Malory's world explored, from the battle of Towton to the "grete bokes" of chivalric material composd for aristocratic families.
A highly readable version of this remarkable and largely unexplored work. Perceforest is one of the largest and certainly the most extraordinary of the late Arthurian romances. Justly described as "an encyclopaedia of 14th-century chivalry" and "a mine of folkloric motifs", it is the subject ofrapidly increasing attention and research. The author of Perceforest draws on Alexander romances, Roman histories and medieval travel writing (not to mention oral tradition, as he gives, for example, the distinctly racy first written version of the Sleeping Beauty story), to create a remarkable prehistory of King Arthur's Britain. It begins with the arrival in Britain of Alexander the Great. His follow...