Chaucer’s Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics

This collection reminds us of the reasons to read, and re-read, Chaucer. The essays cast new light on Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry and, in their careful scholarship and sensitivity to the past, show us paradoxically how Chaucer is being re-conceived in the 21st century. Chapters include: Sir John Clanvowe and Chaucer’s Friar’s Tale * Chaucer’s counterfeit Exempla * Chaucer’s material landscape * time and authority in Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules * patterns of disruption in The Prioress’ Tale * Petrarch, the clerk, and the wife * Chaucer’s ethical poetic in the Canterbury Tales * the dangerous beauty of Chaucer’s prioress * Chaucer in the 21st century: some thoughts on digital archives * London’s Chaucer * Chaucer’s roi solei