Chaucerian Spaces

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Chaucerian Spaces
Spatial Poetics in Chaucer's Opening Tales

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William F. Woods - Author

SUNY series in Medieval Studies

Price: $60.00
Hardcover - 215 pages

Release Date: June 2008

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7487-7

Price: $23.95
Paperback - 215 pages

Release Date: July 2009

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7488-4

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Summary

Examines affect and the significance of space and place in the first six Canterbury Tales.

Chaucerian Spaces explores the affect and the significance of space and place in the first six tales in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Relatively little has been written about space in the Canterbury Tales, yet the rewards for attending to this aspect of Chaucer’s aesthetic are considerable. Space indicates the potential for characteristic action, development, and a more profound expression of being. In these tales, characters inhabit a landscape and places within it that express their inner life. Emelye in her garden, Palamon and Arcite in the grove—all occupy spaces or places that manifest social destiny and individual intention. Space and subjectivity change as territories give way to households, and the horizons of consciousness shrink to the core of human intent. Most striking is the transformation of women in place. Emelye, Alysoun, even Custance and the Wife of Bath, dwell in places that express their social and economic potential. They are in place, but place is also in them: they merge in metaphor with the places that express them, bringing the reader closer to the sensible, reflective experience of the medieval subject.

“Woods’s human ethos, engaging manner, and deep experience with Chaucer’s texts, as well as his intimate familiarity with critical conversations of the 1980s and 1990s, animate his first book … Woods provides beautifully crafted and balanced readings for the tales he treats.” — Speculum – A Journal of Medieval Studies

“Chaucerian Spaces is usually thought-provoking, often entertaining … those interested in arguments about space and placement in Chaucer will find it well worth examining.” — Journal of English and Germanic Philology

“This is a thoughtful, well-written study that can be recommended to students encountering Chaucer for the first time as well as to specialists.” — Review of English Studies

William F. Woods is Professor of English at Wichita State University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction

1. Dwelling Places of Chivalry and Nature

2. Alysoun the Housewife

3. The Solace of Open Spaces

4. Symkyn’s Place

5. Changing Places

6. The Riches of Exilic Space

7. The Domestic Market

8. The Exile and Her Kingdom

9. Chaucer’s Spatial Poetics

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Related Subjects

English Literature
Literary Criticism
Medieval Studies

47172/47173(JP/DG/AV)

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