Contradictions: From Beowulf to Chaucer: Selected Studies of Larry Benson

by Andersson,Theodore M.; Barney,S

• ISBN13: 9781859281734
• ISBN10: 1859281737
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-12-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This volume brings together a series of key essays by Larry D Benson, well-known for his work in editing the Riverside Chaucer. Of the studies selected, the opening three deal with Old English, recasting the possibilities for the critical study of Beowulf, above all the relation between oral and written literary production. The following ten essays turn to Middle English literature, with the focus first on Chaucer, and the evolution of his works and his language, then on the social and cultural context of medieval chivalric texts. Throughout, Professor Benson approaches his subjects with a skeptical intent, even a seeming contrariness in seeking to contradict received views, but in fact with the purpose of questioning in order to understand more deeply. Scattered in their original publications, and with one hitherto unpublished, together these studies present a powerful argument for this questioning approach to fundamental issues and constitute a major contribution to the study of the literary and cultural history of the medieval world.Larry D Benson is Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English, Harvard University.

Author Biography

Larry D. Benson is the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Bibliography of Larry D Benson

The literary character of Anglo-Saxon formulaic poetry

The pagan colouring of Beowulf

The orginality of Beowulf

Chaucer's spelling reconsidered

The order of the Canterbury Tales

The authorship of St Erkenwald

The date of the Alliterative Morte Arthure

The occasion of The Parliament of Fowls

The "Love-Tydynges" in Chaucer's House of Fame

The 'queynte' punnings of Chaucer's critics

The beginnings of Chaucer's English style

The tournament in the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes and L'Histoire de Guillaume Le Maréchal

Courtly love and chivalry in the late Middle Ages

Tabula gratulatoria

Index

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