Telling Images Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative II [Hardcover]

Telling Imagesinvestigates certain symbolic traditions in Geoffrey Chaucer's major poetry and their relationship to the visual culture of his time. With more than 150 illustrations, it continues an inquiry begun in the author's prize-winning study,Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales. Here, intensive readings ofTroilus and Criseyde,The Legend of Good Women, and four moreCanterbury Talesfocus once again on imagery created by narrative itselfnot on passing metaphors or similes, but on the images we create in our minds as we imagine the action of a story. Their suggestive likeness to images embedded in yet other texts, realized in illuminated manuscripts and other visual arts of the age, is shown to ground and enrich our reading of these poems.

[T]his collection of previously far-flung essays and its consolidation through substantial additional material amounts to a volume which every university library and every serious Chaucerian will want to acquire. Even those who are skeptical about Kolve's reliance on visualtopoiwill find here, once again, profound interpretations of Chaucer's writings that are to be reckoned with. V. A. Kolve has gained an international reputation as one of our most astute interpreters of the complex interchanges in the later 13th through early 16th century between verbal and visual artifacts.Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative IIhas been long in coming, but even the earliest essays in it refresh and make green poetry one may have thought one knew only too well. And for beginning students, it will open the grand medieval treasure house once again. This collection aptly complements that earlier volume and offers new insights and perspectives on the analyses and scholarship it offered. Engaging and informative, this collection has much to offer to anyone interested in Chaucer or medieval literature and culture . . . Highly recommended. V. A. Kolve has beelCÅ