Chaucer as Children's Literature
Chaucer as Children's Literature

Author: Velma Bourgeois Richmond

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-01-24

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 078648151X

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Although Geoffrey Chaucer is the major author for Middle English studies, he often receives little notice in studies of children's literature. However, there is a fascinating relationship between Chaucer and children's interests. This book examines in detail Chaucer stories retold for children--both the texts and the illustrations, which are excellent examples of the verbal and visual storytelling that are very important in children's literature. The popularity of certain Chaucer stories, their adjustment for children, and the historical, political, educational, and social contexts of the retellings reveal Victorian and Edwardian attitudes. The author also considers how retellings of Chaucer stories contributed to the traditional view of Chaucer as the Father of English and how this view of him was developed at the turn of the twentieth century as part of an expansion of general education and English studies.

Joanna Baillie, Romantic Dramatist
Joanna Baillie, Romantic Dramatist

Author: Thomas C. Crochunis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-02-24

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1134422490

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This superb collection of new essays offers a unique insight into the work of a leading women dramatist of the Romantic era. Contributors offer: *contextual material for those new to Baillie's work *examinations of the relationships between her plays and the philosophical and scientific writing of the era *discussion of Baillie's theatrical methods *extended interpretations of individual plays. Ending years of neglect of Baillie's crucial work, this volume is essential reading for those working on Romanticism, women's writing, or drama of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910
The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910

Author: David Matthews

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780816631858

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Before the 1760s -- with the major exception of Chaucer -- nearly all of Middle English literature lay undiscovered and ignored. Because established scholars regarded later medieval literature as primitive and barbaric, the study of this rich literary heritage was relegated to antiquarians and dilettantes. In The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910, David Matthews chronicles the gradual rediscovery of this literature and the formation of Middle English as a scholarly pursuit. Matthews details how the careers, class positions, and ambitions of only a few men gave shape and direction to the discipline. Mostly from the lower middle class, they worked in the church or in law and hoped to exploit medieval literature for financial success and social advancement. Where Middle English was concerned, Matthews notes, these scholars were self-taught, and their amateurism came at the price of inaccurately edited and often deliberately "improved" texts intended for a general public that sought appealing, rather than authentic, reading material. This study emphasizes the material history of the discipline, examining individual books and analyzing introductions, notes, glossaries, promotional materials, lists of subscribers, and owners' annotations to assess the changing methodological approaches of the scholars and the shifts in readership. Matthews explores the influence of aristocratic patronage and the societies formed to further the editing and publication of texts. And he examines the ideological uses of Middle English and the often contentious debates between these scholars and organizations about the definition of Englishness itself. A thorough work of scholarship, The Making of MiddleEnglish presents for the first time a detailed account of the formative phase of Middle English studies and provides new perspectives on the emergence of medieval studies, canon formation, the politics of editing, and the history of the book.