Fisher's work is a vivid, lively, and readable translation of the most famous work of England's premier medieval poet. Preserving Chaucer's rhyme and meter and faithfully articulating his poetic voice, Fisher makes Chaucer's tales accessible to a contemporary ear.
Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Bonn, language: English, abstract: “That he is a poet concerned with gender issues is obvious: almost every narrative in the Canterbury Tales deals with how the sexes relate to one another or envision one another” (Laskaya 1995: 11). Of course Laskaya talks about Geoffrey Chaucer and his famous work “The Canterbury Tales” from the 14th century, which is an unfinished collection of tales told by a group of pilgrims. Even though Laskaya accounts “The Canterbury Tales” as rich in gender issues, this work concentrates on four specific prologues and tales, the so called “Marriage Group”. The work in hand is supposed to discuss gender-specific aspects and gender-relations in the context of medieval society using the example of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”.
Queer theory and postcolonial analysis are brought to bear on Chaucer. Bruger argues that, under the pressure of producing a poetic vision for a new vernacular English audience in the 'Canterbury Tales', Chaucer reimagined late medieval relations between the body and the community.
Through an analysis of the poems Chaucers wordes Unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn, Troilus and Criseyde, the Legend of Good Women, the Man of Law's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Tale and its Prologue, the Clerk's Tale, and the Pardoner's Tale, Carolyn Dinshaw offers a provocative argument on medieval sexual constructs and Chaucer's role in shaping them. Operating under the assumption that people read and write certain ways based upon society's demands, Dinshaw examines gender identity and the effects of a patriarchal society. The focal point of Dinshaw's argument is the idea that the literary text can be seen as the female body while any literary activities upon the text are decidedly male. Through a series of six provocative essays, Dinshaw argues that Chaucer was not only aware that gender is a social construction, but that he self-consciously worked to oppose the dominance of masculinity that a patriarchal society places on texts by creating works in which gender identity and hierarchy were more fluid.
Rape does not have to happen. The fact that it does--and in the United States a rape is reported every six minutes--indicates that we live in a rape-prone culture where rape or the threat of rape functions as a tool for enforcing sexual difference and hierarchy. Rape and Representation explores how cultural forms construct and reenforce social attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate sexual violence. The essays proceed from the observation that literature not only reflects but also contributes to what a society believes about itself. Fourteen essays by authors in the fields of English, American and African-American, German, African, Brazilian, Classical, and French literatures and film present a wide range of texts from different historical periods and cultures. Contributors demythologize patriarchal representation in literature and art in order to show how it makes rape seem natural and inevitable. Contributors include: the editors, John J. Winkler, Patricia Klindiest Joplin, Susan Winnett, Ellen Rooney, Coppélia Kahn, Eileen Julien, Marta Peixoto, Kathryn Gravdal, Carla Freccero, Nellie V. McKay, Nancy A. Jones, and Froma I. Zeitlin. Their work raises pressing--and often difficult--questions for feminist criticism.
Zadie Smith's first time writing for the stage, a riotous twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Wife of Bath “Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. She plays many roles round here. And never Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life Story to whoever has ears and eyes . . .” In her stage-writing debut, celebrated novelist and essayist Zadie Smith brings to life a comedic and cutting twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic The Wife of Bath. The Wife of Willesden follows Alvita, a Jamaican-born British woman in her mid-50s, as she tells her life story to a band of strangers in a small pub on the Kilburn High Road. Wearing fake gold chains, dressed in knock-off designer clothes, and speaking in a mixture of London slang and patois, Alvita recalls her five marriages in outrageous, bawdy detail, rewrites her mistakes as triumphs, and shares her beliefs on femininity, sexuality, and misogyny with anyone willing to listen. A thoughtful reimagining of an unforgettable narrative of female sexual power, written with singular verve and wit, The Wife of Willesden shows why Zadie Smith is one of the sharpest and most versatile writers working today.
A re-editing of F.N. Robinson's second edition of The works of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1957 by the team of experts at the Riverside Institute who have greatly expanded the introductory material, explanatory notes, textual notes, bibliography and glossary. The result of many years' study. The Riverside Chaucer is the most authentic and exciting edition available of Chaucer's complete works.
Gender criticism has recently been applied to a wide range of ancient and modern literature; such an approach can reveal many previously unrecognized attitudes among earlier writers. Chaucer has long been recognized as a writer with psychological sensitivities. This book attempts to show that Chaucer has demonstrated his sensitivities on gender issues by recognizing and revising many of the gender stereotypes familiar from his time. It is likely that he was influenced in these ideas by an early feminist writer from France, Christine de Pizan, who complained about the Romance of the Rose as an embodiment of gender stereotyping. Chaucer's later works particularly show an awareness of gender issues that has not been entirely recognized and which is at variance with ideas in the Romance, which he had translated into English during his youthful period.