A01=H. Marshall Leicester
agency
Author_H. Marshall Leicester
canterbury tales
Category=DSBB
Category=DSC
character oriented
chaucer
chivalry
critical theory
deconstruction
despairing self
disenchanted consciousness
dramatic principle
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
feminine imagination
gender studies
gendered imagination
institutional critique
knighthood
language
masculine imagination
pilgrims
practical consciousness
psychoanalysis
recovering the subject
representation
self presentation
sex and gender
social theory
subjectivity
the knights tale
the pardoners tale
wife of bath
Product details
- ISBN 9780520068339
- Weight: 771g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jun 1990
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The question of the 'dramatic principle' in the Canterbury Tales, of whether and how the individual tales relate to the pilgrims who are supposed to tell them, has long been a central issue in the interpretation of Chaucer's work. Drawing on ideas from deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and social theory, Leicester proposes that Chaucer can lead us beyond the impasses of contemporary literary theory and suggests new approaches to questions of agency, representation, and the gendered imagination. Leicester reads the 'Canterbury Tales' as radically voiced and redefines concepts like 'self' and 'character' in the light of current discussions of language and subjectivity. He argues for Chaucer's disenchanted practical understanding of the constructed character of the self, gender, and society, building his case through close readings of the 'Pardoner's', 'Wife of Bath's', and 'Knight's tales'. His study is among the first major treatments of Chaucer's poetry utilizing the techniques of contemporary literary theory and provides new models for reading the poems while revising many older views of them and of Chaucer's relation to his age.
H. Marshall Leicester, Jr. is Professor of English Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of several articles on Chaucer and medieval literature.
