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.
Show moreFirst 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.
Show moreIntroduction: 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
A. S. G. Edwards is Honorary Professor of Medieval Manuscripts at the University of Kent at Canterbury. JULIA BOFFEY is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary University of London. PHILIP KNOX is University Lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge.
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*
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