Premodern places : Calais to Surinam, Chaucer to Aphra Behn / David Wallace.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wallace, David, 1954-

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Foreign influences.

English literature.

English literature--Middle English, 1100-1500--History and criticism.

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

Geography in literature.

English literature--Early modern.

English literature--Middle English.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

ix, 342. : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Blackwell, 2006.

Summary:

This book recovers places in the mental mapping of medieval and Renaissance writers, from Chaucer to Aphra Behn. Beginning with Calais, peopled by the English from 1347 to 1558, and ending with Surinam, traded away for Manhattan in 1667, this well-illustrated book recreates the distinctive cultural life of a range of locations: from Flanders which led the world in technological innovations; to Somerset, which provided a fitting home for Dante; to the Canaries (the Fortunate Islands), which formed the limits of western dreaming. The book's exploration of premodern places features fascinating vignettes, such as an English merchant learning love songs in Calais, coupled with insights into broader economic narratives of political, technological, religious, and economic change. In particular, it provides long geneaologies of blackness and whiteness, race and slavery, in the premodern world.

Contents:

Introduction

1. At Calais Gate

2. In Flaundres

3. Dante in Somerset

4. Genoa

5. Canaries (The Fortunate Islands)

6. Surinam.

Notes:

Originally published: 2004.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781405151528

1405151528

OCLC:

64097599

Publisher Number:

99996798271