Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales : : An Annotated Bibliography 1900-1984 / / Caroline D. Eckhardt.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Eckhardt, Caroline D.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Chaucer Bibliographies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (468 p.)

The General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one of the most enduring works of English literature. Beloved by scholars, teachers, students, and general readers, it has been given a great many different interpretations. This annotated, international bibliography of twentieth-century criticism on the Prologue is an essential reference guide. It includes books, journal articles, and dissertations, and a descriptive list of twentieth-century editions; it is the most complete inventory of modern criticism on the Prologue. The extensive annotations provide uniquely convenient access to many publications that are otherwise difficult to obtain.In her introduction, Caroline Eckhardt provides a careful and comprehensive overview of modern trends in criticism, trends which can be traced through the bibliography. At the beginning of the century, for example, Chaucer's Prologue was often described as a 'portrait gallery' and praised for its realism - social, psychological, and dramatic. Later in the century came emphases on irony, rhetoric, Freudian interpretations, elaborate allegories, and stylistic complexities. At present, the Prologue is often interpreted as a system of signs and symbols in which realism, if it exists at all, serves purposes beyond itself. The smiling and serene poet of the earlier period has been replaced by a self-conscious ironist, sometimes with a split personality. The portrait gallery of the beginning of the century is still there, though the spectator who walks along it tends to see something less fixed textually (the Prologue is now commonly discussed as work-in-progress) and more complicated structurally, generically, and thematically. It is the spectator, of course, who has changed.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- General Editor's Preface -- Preface -- Abbreviations and Master List of Periodicals -- Introduction -- 1. Editions -- 2. Bibliographies, Indexes, and Other Research Tools -- 3. General Criticism and Cultural Background -- 4. Language, Metrics, and Studies of the Manuscripts or Early Editions -- 5. The Springtime Setting, the Narrator, and the Gathering at the Tabard -- 6. The Knight -- 7. The Squire -- 8. The Yeoman -- 9. The Prioress and her Companions -- 10. The Monk -- 11. The Friar -- 12. The Merchant -- 13. The Clerk -- 14. The Serjeant of the Law -- 15. The Franklin -- 16. The Guildsmen -- 17. The Cook -- 18. The Shipman -- 19. The Physician -- 20. The Wife of Bath -- 21. The Parson -- 22. The Plowman -- 23. The Transition and the Miller -- 24. The Manciple -- 25. The Reeve -- 26. The Summoner -- 27. The Pardoner -- 28. The Narrator's Comments and Apology for His Style -- 29. The Host and the Establishment of the Storytelling Contest -- Index