English Literature in the Age of Chaucer

by Mehl; Dieter

• ISBN13: 9780582492998
• ISBN10: 0582492998
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-08-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

 Written in an engaging and accessible manner, English Literature in the Age of Chaucerserves as both a lucid introduction to Middle English literature for those coming fresh to the study of earlier English writing, and as a stimulating examination of the themes, traditions and the literary achievement of a number of particulary original and interesting authors.  In addition to detailed and sensitive treatment of Chaucer's major works, the book includes chapters on his chief contemporaries, such as John Gower, William Langland and the Gawain-poet. It also examines the often underrated contribution to the English literary tradition of his successors John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve, as well as the interesting and original work of the Scottish poets, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, who also claim Chaucer as their model.  Apart from the narrative poetry of Chaucer and his followers, the book also contains chapters on the Middle English lyric; Middle English prose, including Mandeville's travels; the most original and imaginative writings of the Middle English mystics, in particular Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe; and Thomas Malory's impressive prose compilation of Arthurian stories.

Author Biography

Dieter Mehl is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Bonn

Table of Contents

Editors' Preface	vii
Longman Literature in English Series	viii
Author's Preface	x
List of Abbreviations	xii
Introduction: The Age of Chaucer	1	(7)
Geoffrey Chaucer	8	(52)
Reading and translating	11	(3)
The Book of the Duchess	14	(2)
The Parliament of Fowls	16	(3)
The House of Fame	19	(3)
Troilus and Criseyde	22	(10)
The Legend of Good Women	32	(4)
The Canterbury Tales	36	(24)
John Gower	60	(20)
The Gower canon	61	(1)
Confessio Amantis: transmission and genesis	62	(2)
The frame and the tales	64	(8)
The lover's shrift and the closing of the frame	72	(8)
William Langland	80	(28)
Text, texts and poem	80	(2)
Piers Plowman in its time	82	(1)
Structure and narrative discourse	83	(4)
Allegorical method, homiletic criticism and theological argument	87	(21)
The Gawain-Poet	108	(19)
Patience	110	(3)
Cleanness	113	(3)
Pearl	116	(3)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight	119	(8)
John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve	127	(30)
Courtly love poems	128	(7)
Major translations and adaptations	135	(9)
A monastic hack-writer?	144	(2)
Thomas Hoccleve	146	(11)
The Middle English Lyric	157	(16)
Love, fun and day-to-day trouble in the secular lyric	158	(3)
Carols and religious lyrics	161	(6)
Historical and political poems	167	(6)
Middle Scots Poetry	173	(21)
James I of Scotland: The Kingis Quair	173	(2)
The Book of the Houlat	175	(1)
Richard Holland
Robert Henryson	176	(7)
William Dunbar	183	(3)
Gavin Douglas	186	(8)
Middle English Prose	194	(30)
Mandeville's Travels	195	(6)
Prose writing of the English mystics	201	(6)
The Book of Margery Kempe	207	(4)
Prose narrative: Thomas Malory and Morte Darthur	211	(13)
Conclusion	224	(3)
Chronology	227	(4)
Bibliography	231	(15)
Index	246