Chaucerian Realism
Regular price
€92.99
A01=Robert Myles
Author_Robert Myles
Category=DSBB
Category=DSC
Chaucer's works
Chaucerian question
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Friar's Tale
Intentionality
Language
Literary theory
Modern literary fiction
Modern understanding
Realism
Robert Myles
Semantics
Significance
Thought
Product details
- ISBN 9780859914093
- Weight: 420g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 11 Aug 1994
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Myles challenges the convention of the `medieval mind' and perceives new semantic sophistication in Chaucer's language.
NB DSB BLURB ON CERTAIN OCCASIONS What is the difference between saying something and meaning it, and saying something and not meaning it? A modern question. A Chaucerian question. Through his analysis of intentionality and the metaphysics of speech, Robert Myles shows why Chaucer's appreciation of the functioning of language and thought could be `modern'. Through his analysis of Chaucer's works, particularly the Friar's Tale, Myles demonstrates that Chaucer's understanding of these is modern and the myth of the medieval mind as other than our own is exploded. The medieval belief in intentionality, the object-directedness of all beings, allowed appreciationof a fact: thought and language areintentional. On a practical level Chaucer deliberately exploits three-level semantics (signs are simultaneously mind-drected and world-directed) to create `realistic' fiction in the modernliterary sense of the term. Myles also argues that Chaucer is a realist in the philosophical sense, a view which goes counter to the current of much recent criticism. This book will not only be a challenging addition to medievaland Chaucerian studies, but has interesting implications for the historical study of intentionality, semiotics and epistemology.
DR ROBERT MYLESis senior lecturer at the English and French Language Centre, McGill University, and a research fellow at the Department of English, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
