Chaucerian Fiction / / Robert B. Burlin.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton Legacy Lib. eBook Package 1931-1979
• VerfasserIn: Burlin, Robert B.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2015]; ©1977
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: Princeton Legacy Library ; 1687
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)

By analyzing Chaucer's major poetic works, Robert Burlin succeeds in isolating thematic undercurrents with a bearing on the poet's process of composition. He is thus able to relate individual poems to Chaucer's view of himself as a writer, and to assess the internal evidence for a Chaucerian theory of fiction. Professor Burlin contends that a logic underlies Chaucer's aesthetic assumptions whose imaginative configuration appears both simple and inevitable in the context of his poetic development. The author first explores possible antecedents for the terms "experience" and auctoritee, and shows that this common antinomy provides the basis for dividing the poems into three groups.In the "poetic fictions," Chaucer speculates on the value of poetic activity, on the sources of its affect, and on its validity as a means of apprehension. The "philosophic fictions" concentrate on the epistemological aspect of literary activity. In a final group of poems, termed "psychological fictions," the poet explores the speaker's unspoken motives, as well as his pronounced intentions, in telling a tale.Originally published in 1977.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Experience and Authority -- Poetic Fictions -- I. The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women -- II. The House of Fame -- III. The Book of the Duchess -- Philosophic Fictions -- IV. The Parliament of Fowls -- V. Palamon and Arcite -- VI. Troilus and Criseyde -- VII. Patient Griselda -- Psychological Fictions -- VIII. The Canterbury Experiment -- IX. The Pardoner and the Canon's Yeoman -- X. The Monk and the Prioress -- XI. The Franklin and the Merchant -- XII. The Wife of Bath and the Nun's Priest -- The Uses of Fiction -- Notes -- Index