Poetry and Crisis in the Age of Chaucer. - Hardcover

Muscatine, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0268004595 ISBN 13: 9780268004590

Publisher: University of Notre Dame, 1972

Synopsis

An important study that examines the styles of French poetry as they contribute to Chaucer's style, tracing the idealizing, non-representational conventions of court romances from the early twelfth century to their epitome in Guillaume de Lorris's portion of Roman de la rose, and surveying the bourgeois but no less conventional characteristics of fabliaux, beast epics, and fables as they influence Jean de Meun's portion of the Roman. Chaucer fused these traditions in his mature poetry through juxtaposition, blending, and parody. Book of the Duchess reflects a relatively pure courtly style; increasing use of bourgeois conventions enrich House of Fame and Parliament of Fowls. Troilus and Criseyde balances courtliness and bourgeoisie, contrasting both with Boethian sublimity to disclose their limits. Canterbury Tales displays the courtly (Knight's and Clerk's tales), the bourgeois (Reeve's, Wife of Bath's, and Canon's tales), and rich mixtures (Miller's, Merchant's, and Nun's Priest's tales). The various styles and tones accumulate to produce a Gothic tension between the ideal and the phenomenal.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame
• Publication date: 1972
• ISBN 10: 0268004595
• ISBN 13: 9780268004590
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208