Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World - Softcover

Howard, Donald R. R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449903419 ISBN 13: 9780449903414

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1989

Synopsis

An award-winning biography that recreates the public, private, and poetic life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry and a central man of his age
 
Chaucer was born in the latter half of the fourteenth century, an age of revolution and devastation when Europe was convulsed by the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Death, and the social and intellectual upheavals that marked the “autumn of Feudalism.” The son of a wealthy London vintner, he maneuvered his way into the turbulent courts of Edward III and Richard II, and thus, without holding noble rank himself, he was able to witness the violent drama of royal power. It was, as Howard demonstrates, the perfect vantage point for a poet. Chaucer’s own poetic development from the mannered medieval style of The Book of the Duchess to the rich, comic, human complexity of The Canterbury Tales reflects the transformation of his world. With The Canterbury Tales and the darker, more formal epic Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer established English for all time as a language of literature.
 
“A thoughtful, thorough book that conjures up the living presence of England’s first great poet more concretely than anybody has ever done before.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

About this title

About the Author

Donald R. Howard’s distinguished academic career began with a teaching post at Ohio State University. He was professor of English at Johns Hopkins University and also at Stanford University, where he was named Olive H. Palmer Professor of Humanities. He died in 1987.

From School Library Journal

YA Howard has assembled the schol arly research of Chaucer experts, giv ing readers, in one source, the best, or at least the consensus. He presents lit tle new in the way of research, although his book is filled with speculation and filling in between the lines. For this rea son, and for others, this book is a fine vehicle for students who wish to learn of Chaucer and his environment. How ard takes readers through Chaucer's life, telling them of the odd and the ev eryday. Students who wish to research Chaucerian ideas will be better served by going to the original sources, and to more current ones. For those who wish to get an overall impression, Howard's book is the answer, for he brings Chau cer to life, and causes readers to see the man. George F. Hawkins, Episcopal High School, Bellaire
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0449903419
• ISBN 13: 9780449903414
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 676