Chaucer and the City (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781843840732)

Essays exploring Chaucer's identity as a London poet and the urban context for his writings.

Literature of the city and the city in literature are topics of major contemporary interest. This volume enhances our understanding of Chaucer's iconic role as a London poet, defining the modern sense of London as a city in history, steeped in its medieval past. Building on recent work by historians on medieval London, as well as modern urban theory, the essays address the centrality of the city in Chaucer's work, and of Chaucer to a literature and a language of the city. Contributors explore the spatial extent of the city, imaginatively and geographically; the diverse and sometimes violent relationships between communities, and the use of language to identify and speak for communities; the worlds of commerce, the aristocracy, law, and public order. A final section considers the longer history and memory of the medieval city beyond the devastations of the Great Fire and into the Victorian period.

Dr ARDIS BUTTERFIELD is Reader in English at University College London.

Contributors: ARDIS BUTTERFIELD, MARION TURNER, RUTH EVANS, BARBARA NOLAN, CHRISTOPHER CANNON, DEREK PEARSALL, HELEN COOPER, C. DAVID BENSON, ELLIOTKENDALL, JOHN SCATTERGOOD, PAUL DAVIS, HELEN PHILLIPS

Author: Ardis Butterfield
ISBN-10: 1843840731
ISBN-13: 9781843840732
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Language: English
Published: 05/18/2006
Pages: 248
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.32w x 0.95d