English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries [Paperback]

In this detailed study of English narrative verse the author describes and analyses the undisputed masterpieces of narrative (such as the works of the Gawain poet, Langland, Gower and Chaucer), as well as anonymous romances and specimens of religious and comic narrative which form the background to more well-known poems.In this detailed study of English narrative verse the author describes and analyses the undisputed masterpieces of narrative (such as the works of the Gawain poet, Langland, Gower and Chaucer), as well as anonymous romances and specimens of religious and comic narrative which form the background to more well-known poems.This is a wide-ranging and detailed study of English narrative verse in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Piero Boitani describes and analyses the undisputed masterpieces of narrative (such as the works of the Gawain poet, Langland, Gower and Chaucer), as well as the anonymous romances and specimens of religious and comic narrative which form the background to the better-known poems. The book is divided by literary genres or structural systems: chapters on the religious, comic and romance traditions are followed by a discussion of dream and visionary narratives and a chapter on story collections including those of Gower. The rest of the book is devoted to Chaucer, who mastered all these types.Preface to the English edition; 1. The religious tradition; 2. The comic tradition; 3. The world of romance; 4. Dream and vision; 5. The narrative collections and Gower; 6. Chaucer; Notes; Index.' & the sensitivity of the criticism of individual works astonishes and persuades. The Gawain-poet's indication of every sensation, every thought and every move in the temptation scenes; the realization that Piers Plowman is a poem of voices in which time and objects have only a limited value; the shared cultural background which fuses the dialogue between Dreamer and Knight in The Book of the Duchess; the continual frustration of the reader's percl3-