Customer Reviews

Chaucer: Sources and Background

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This book is ideal for exploring the sources Chaucer used and, well, abused in his Canterbury Tales. To save the busy scholar from searching endlessly on databases and in libraries for obscure texts and analogues of the Canterbury Tales' subject matter and characters, Miller gathers them all into one volume and provides commentary on the translation process and inspiration behind each of Chaucer's tales. Many of the sources are in the original Latin, French, German, etc., but there is dense annotation provided with each work that compares Chaucer's version of the folklore or literary piece that he utilized.

My Chaucer professor suggested this book for use in preparing for a presentation that various groups in the class were assigned in order to give background information on the history of each tale, and this process was, aside from her lectures, one of the most informative parts of the class. Whether you're a student struggling with Chaucer's relevance to the English language or simply a curious litterateur with interest in the inter-textuality of medieval writing and authorship, then this book will help you immensely.