Title Details
254 Pages
23.4 x 15.6 cm
4 b/w illus.
Series: Chaucer Studies
Series Vol. Number:
45
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
Chaucer's Book of the Duchess
Contexts and Interpretations
- Description
- Contents
- Reviews
First entire collection centred on Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, making a compelling case for its importance and value.
The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's first major poem, is foundational for our understanding of Chaucer's literary achievements in relation to late-medieval English textual production; yet in comparison with other works, itstreatment has been somewhat peripheral in previous criticism.
This volume, the first full-length collection devoted to the Book, argues powerfully against the prevalent view that it is an underdeveloped or uneven early work, and instead positions it as a nuanced literary and intellectual effort in its own right, one that deserves fuller integration with twenty-first-century Chaucer studies. The essays within it pursue lingering questions as well as new frontiers in research, including the poem's literary relationships in the sphere of French and English writing, material processes of transmission and compilation, and patterns of reception. Each chapter advances an original reading of the Book of the Duchess that uncovers new aspects of its internal dynamics or of its literary or intellectual contexts. As a whole, the volume reveals the poem's mobility and elasticity within an increasingly international sphere of cultural discourse that thrives on dynamic exchange and encourages sophisticated reflection on authorial practice.
Jamie C. Fumo is Professor of English at Florida State University.
Contributors: B.S.W. Barootes, Julia Boffey, Ardis Butterfield, Rebecca Davis, A.S.G. Edwards, Jeff Espie, Philip Knox, Helen Phillips, Elizaveta Strakhov, Sara Sturm-Maddox, Marion Wells.
The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's first major poem, is foundational for our understanding of Chaucer's literary achievements in relation to late-medieval English textual production; yet in comparison with other works, itstreatment has been somewhat peripheral in previous criticism.
This volume, the first full-length collection devoted to the Book, argues powerfully against the prevalent view that it is an underdeveloped or uneven early work, and instead positions it as a nuanced literary and intellectual effort in its own right, one that deserves fuller integration with twenty-first-century Chaucer studies. The essays within it pursue lingering questions as well as new frontiers in research, including the poem's literary relationships in the sphere of French and English writing, material processes of transmission and compilation, and patterns of reception. Each chapter advances an original reading of the Book of the Duchess that uncovers new aspects of its internal dynamics or of its literary or intellectual contexts. As a whole, the volume reveals the poem's mobility and elasticity within an increasingly international sphere of cultural discourse that thrives on dynamic exchange and encourages sophisticated reflection on authorial practice.
Jamie C. Fumo is Professor of English at Florida State University.
Contributors: B.S.W. Barootes, Julia Boffey, Ardis Butterfield, Rebecca Davis, A.S.G. Edwards, Jeff Espie, Philip Knox, Helen Phillips, Elizaveta Strakhov, Sara Sturm-Maddox, Marion Wells.
Introduction: Reopening the Book of the Duchess - Jamie C. Fumo
Codicology, Text, and the Book of the Duchess - Julia Boffey and A S G Edwards
Idleness, Chess, and Tables: Recuperating Fables in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess - B. S. W. Barootes
'Noon other werke': The Work of Sleep in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess - Rebecca Davis
Discovering Woe: The Translation of Affect in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess and Spenser's Daphnaïda - Marion Wells
Alcyone's Grave: Inscription and Intertextuality in Chaucer, Spenser, and Ovid - Jeff Espie
Tribute to a Duchess: The Book of the Duchess and Machaut's Remede de Fortune - Sara Sturm-Maddox
'Hyt am I': Voicing Selves in the Book of the Duchess, the Roman de la rose, and the Fonteinne Amoureuse - Philip Knox
'Counterfeit' Imitatio: Understanding the Poet-Patron Relationship in Machaut's Fonteinne amoureuse and Chaucer's Book of the Duchess - Elizaveta Strakhov
The Shock of the Old? The Unsettling Art of Chaucer's Antique Citations - Helen Phillips
Response: The Book of the Duchess, Guillaume de Machaut, and the Image of the Archive - Ardis Butterfield
Bibliography
Codicology, Text, and the Book of the Duchess - Julia Boffey and A S G Edwards
Idleness, Chess, and Tables: Recuperating Fables in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess - B. S. W. Barootes
'Noon other werke': The Work of Sleep in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess - Rebecca Davis
Discovering Woe: The Translation of Affect in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess and Spenser's Daphnaïda - Marion Wells
Alcyone's Grave: Inscription and Intertextuality in Chaucer, Spenser, and Ovid - Jeff Espie
Tribute to a Duchess: The Book of the Duchess and Machaut's Remede de Fortune - Sara Sturm-Maddox
'Hyt am I': Voicing Selves in the Book of the Duchess, the Roman de la rose, and the Fonteinne Amoureuse - Philip Knox
'Counterfeit' Imitatio: Understanding the Poet-Patron Relationship in Machaut's Fonteinne amoureuse and Chaucer's Book of the Duchess - Elizaveta Strakhov
The Shock of the Old? The Unsettling Art of Chaucer's Antique Citations - Helen Phillips
Response: The Book of the Duchess, Guillaume de Machaut, and the Image of the Archive - Ardis Butterfield
Bibliography
"The collection is stimulating and challenging, offering fresh perspectives that should generate new branches of critical dialogue on [Book of the Duchess]." NOTTINGHAM MEDIEVAL STUDIES
"A timely and stimulating group of reflections." REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES
"[T]he variety of essays shows the range of approaches to which The Book of the Duchess responds fruitfully, while their shared focus on metapoetic concerns counteracts the 'fragmented' nature of past work on The Book of the Duchess." MODERN PHILOLOGY
"This collection in its overall effect is resonant with the themes of loss, love, trauma, companionship, creativity, art, compassion, consolation, and death-some weighty and worthy topics that will inspire readers and teachers to look again at BD (and its related sources and analogues) and will perhaps reignite its role in the medieval curriculum as a timeless human story that will appeal meaningfully to twenty-first-century readers, as it has for all its past audiences in its various manifestations from Ovid to Chaucer." SPECULUM
"This collection makes a significant contribution to the literature on Chaucer, medieval rhetoric, political allegory, codicology and book studies, and the works of Guillaume de Machaut." CHOICE
"It is clear that Fumo's commitment to openness and multiplicity is also a commitment to polyvocality of perspectives on and in a poem rich with conceptual, affective, and poetic value.. This book can and should awaken a chorus of new voices on Chaucer's early poem and beyond." STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER
Hardcover
9781843845041
April 2018
£75.00 / $115.00
Ebook (EPDF)
9781787442733
April 2018
£24.99 / $29.95
Title Details
254 Pages
2.34 x 1.56 cm
4 b/w illus.
Series: Chaucer Studies
Series Vol. Number:
45
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
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