Chaucer and His Readers Imagining the Author in Late-Medieval England / Seth Lerer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lerer, Seth, 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

England--Civilization--1066-1485.

England.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400--Appreciation--England.

Chaucer, Geoffrey.

Aesthetics, Medieval.

Authors and readers--England--History.

Authors and readers.

Books and reading--England--History.

Books and reading.

English poetry--Middle English, 1100-1500--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

English poetry.

Reader-response criticism.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 309 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st paperback printing.

Place of Publication:

Princeton (New Yersey) : Princeton University Press, 1996.

Summary:

Challenging the view that the fifteenth century was the "Drab Age" of English literary history, Seth Lerer seeks to recover the late-medieval literary system that defined the canon of Chaucer's work and the canonical approaches to its understanding. Lerer shows how the poets, scribes, and printers of the period constructed Chaucer as the "poet laureate" and "father" of English verse. Chaucer appears throughout the fifteenth century as an adviser to kings and master of technique, and Lerer reveals the patterns of subjection, childishness, and inability that characterize the stance of Chaucer's imitators and his readers. In figures from the Canterbury Tales such as the abused Clerk, the boyish Squire, and the infantilized narrator of the "Tale of Sir Thopas," in the excuse-ridden narrator of Troilus and Criseyde, and in Chaucer's cursed Adam Scriveyn, the poet's inheritors found their oppressed personae. Through close readings of poetry from Lydgate to Skelton, detailed analysis of manuscript anthologies and early printed books, and inquiries into the political environments and the social contexts of bookmaking, Lerer charts the construction of a Chaucer unassailable in rhetorical prowess and political sanction, a Chaucer aureate and laureate.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A NOTE ON EDITIONS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION The Subject of Chaucerian Reception

CHAPTER ONE Writing Like the Clerk: Laureate Poets and the Aureate World

CHAPTER TWO Reading Like the Squire: Chaucer, Lydgate, Clanvowe, and the Fifteenth-Century Anthology

CHAPTER THREE Reading Like a Child: Advisory Aesthetics and Scribal Revision in the Canterbury Tal

CHAPTER FOUR The Complaints of Adam Scriveyn: John Shirley and the Canonicity of Chaucer's Short Poems

CHAPTER FIVE At Chaucer's Tomb: Laureation and Paternity in Caxton's Criticism

CHAPTER six Impressions of Identity: Print, Poetry, and Fame in Hawes and Skelton

ENVOY "All pis ys said vnder correctyon"

APPENDIX

NOTES

WORKS CITED

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-302) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691029238

0691029237

OCLC:

1273306998