The Yale Companion to Chaucer [Hardcover]

Professor Seth Lerer (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 2006

This new collection of specially commissioned essays on Chaucer’s poetry is a single-volume guide to the best and most inventive work in Chaucerian studies today. The first such book written with American undergraduate and graduate students in mind, The Yale Companion to Chaucer provides up-to-date information on the history and textual contexts of Chaucer’s work, on the ranges of current critical interpretation, and on the poet’s place in English and European literary history.
With close readings of major texts, the book offers ample material for studying philology, history, and textual criticism as they bear on Chaucer’s work in particular and medieval literature in general. Both interpretation and information are presented, and each essay is accompanied by a detailed bibliography and guide to further study and research.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Mental sharpness makes this volume a timely and refreshing addition to Chaucer studies. The ten contributors, an exceptionally talented team, write with unusual freedom and intellectual range; the result admirably exemplifies how Chaucer might be read, rediscovered, and thought about in the twenty-first century.”—David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania

(David Wallace )

“This book is an important aid to anyone studying Chaucer and looking for a guide that is both readable and aware of recent developments in the field. It deserves to be widely used in teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Seth Lerer has gathered a wonderful group of scholars who write incisively and always interestingly about subjects they know in depth.”—Nicholas Watson, Harvard University 

(Nicholas Watson )

About the Author

Seth Lerer is Avalon Foundation Professor in Humanities and professor of English and comparative literature at Stanford University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (March 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300109296
• ISBN-13: 978-0300109290
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,877,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New ideas about Chaucer, January 9, 2009

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MysticFireball (Salem, Oregon) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Yale Companion to Chaucer (Paperback)

This book is meant to include new content about Chaucer's major works by a variety of scholars, ostensibly new-ish scholars.

For me, it was assigned for a class, and it was very readable and accessible - easy to understand and a good resource for getting a handle on what people like to say about Chaucer and the topics that they focus on - on the role of literature, the roles of different characters, etc.

This companion is divided by the works of the scholars themselves - it would be hard to use it as a detailed section by section explanation of the content of the works. It functions best as a set of analyses that circle around the various themes of the different works.