Literary Criticism : Medieval

Represents the first time that disciples of history and English literature have joined forces to present new interpretations of late fourteenth-century English society. more...

Price: $70.50

This book offers a completely new reading of Chaucer. While most critics have seen his work as essentially socially optimistic and congenial, Marion Turner argues that Chaucer was profoundly concerned with conflict and social antagonism. Chaucer's texts are examined alongside a wide variety of poetry and historical documents from the period. - ;Chaucerian Conflict explores the textual environment of London in the 1380s and 1390s, revealing a language of betrayal, surveillance, slander, treason, rebellion, flawed idealism, and corrupted compaignyes. Taking a strongly interdisciplinary approach, it examines how discourses about social antagonism work across different kinds of texts written at this time, including Chaucer's House of Fame, Troilus and Criseyde, and Canterbury Tales,. and other literary texts such as St Erkenwald, Gower's Vox clamantis, Usk's Testament of Love, and Maidstone's Concordia. Many non-literary texts are also discussed, including the Mercers' Petition, Usk's Appeal, the guild returns, judicial letters, de Mezieres's Letter to Richard II, and chronicle accounts. These were tumultuous decades in London: some of the conflicts and problems discussed include the Peasants' Revolt, the mayoral rivalries of the 1380s, the Merciless Parliament, slander legislation, and contemporary suspicion of urban associations. While contemporary texts try to hold out hope for the future, or imagine an earlier Golden Age, Chaucer's texts foreground social conflict and antagonism. Though most critics have promoted an idea of Chaucer's texts as essentially socially optimistic. and congenial, Marion Turner argues that Chaucer presents a vision of a society that is inevitably divided and destructive. - ;It is refreshing to read a work of literary criticism so enmeshed in primary sources and so able to construct its own understanding of a historical moment. Turner is a sensitive reader of texts, and her vision of Ricardian inte more...

Price: $110.00

Cligès was probably written after Erec et Enide and is thus Chrétien de Troyes' second romance. There are several modern English and French translations of the text, but a need has long been felt for a modern German version, particularly as references in more...

Price: $172.80

This volume deals with medieval comparative Semitic philology (Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic) as practised by Hebrew philologists in the Arabic speaking lands, from Iraq to Spain, discussing its development through the generations (10th-12th cent. CE), its technics and its theoretical basis. more...

Price: $243.00

During late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, mythological, historical and contemporary accounts of cannibalism became particularly popular. Consuming Passions synthesizes and analyses those responses to Eucharistic teachings. more...

Price: $115.00