GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Geoffrey Chaucer by Portraits of Humanists, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dates: d. 1400
Nationality: English
Literary Periods:
Medieval Period, 1100-1500
Middle English Period, ca. 1350-1500
RELATED AUTHORS
- Dante Alighieri
- Giovanni Boccaccio
- John Milton
- Chrétien de Troyes
Website Links
- LuminariumTexts, articles, audio.
- In the MiddleA medieval studies group blog
SEARCHING THE CATALOG
Some Useful Subject Headings:
- Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400
- Chaucer, Geoffrey - Criticism and Interpretation
- Aesthetics, Medieval
- Tales, Medieval -- History and criticism
- Poetry, Medieval -- History and criticism
- English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- History and criticism
- Literature and society -- England -- History -- To 1500
- England -- Civilization -- 1066-1485
- Clothing and dress -- History -- Medieval, 500-1500
ELLESMERE CHAUCER IN THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY
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Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims by William Blake, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
REFERENCE & BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Scribner Writers Series [Database]
Essays on the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer, complete works and suggested reading bibliographies
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online.
- Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window The full text online version of the Oxford English Dictionary contains both the complete Second Edition and the New Edition in progress.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window A searchable collection of digitized early English-language books, including virtually every such work published in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America from from 1473 to 1700.
- Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window A database of English-language literature, containing thousands of full-text works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, as well as journals, author biographies, bibliographies, criticism, and reference resources.
- Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window A literary reference work written by specialists from universities around the world, providing articles on authors, works, and literary and historical topics.
RESEARCH & CRITICISM
MLA International Bibliography
MLA International Bibliography is the definitive literary research database, indexing the most authoritative Chaucer scholarship published in books and academic journals. MLA indexes and links to the entire JSTOR literary research collection as well as linking to many other full-text providers and the Colby College Libraries catalog. If you discover books or articles through MLA that are not available at Colby or through our lending partners, please request these items using your ILLiad Account.
Other useful sources...
- Postmedieval: a Journal of Medieval Cultural Studiescross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal in medieval studies that aims to bring the medieval and modern into productive critical relation.
Chaucerian Spaces (2008) by
Examines affect and the significance of space and place in the first six Canterbury Tales.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9780791474877
A Companion to Chaucer (2001) by
Designed as both a contribution to original research and as a stimulating and accessible text, this volume is a helpful, reliable, responsive and adaptable resource for students of Chaucer at all levels.
Call Number: Miller PR1906.5 .C66 2000ISBN: 0631213325
Chaucer's Jobs (2004) by
Geoffrey Chaucer was not a writer, primarily, but a privileged official place-holder. Prone to violence, including rape, assault, and extortion, the poet was employed first at domestic personal service and subsequently at police-work of various sorts, protecting the established order during a period of massive social upset. Chaucer's Jobs shows that the servile and disciplinary nature of the daily work Chaucer did was repeated in his poetry, which by turns flatters his aristocratic betters and deals out discipline to malcontent others. Carlson contends that it was this social-political quality of Chaucer's writings, not artistic merit, that made him the 'Father of English Poetry'.
Call Number: Miller PR1905 .C37 2004ISBN: 1403966257
Chaucer (1987) by
The author has assimilated current and past research on Chaucer and produced a readable biography where his subject really comes to life.
Call Number: Colby Annex PR1905 .H58 1987ISBN: 9780525244004
Chaucer : contemporary approaches (2009) by
Chaucer was an extraordinary writer who expressed the tenor of his times with ingenious verbal facility and a profound sympathy for the human condition. Like his original work, the ongoing study of his life, writings, and culture reflects the questions, conversations, and scholarly approaches of contemporary society. A renaissance of sorts in Chaucer studies has been flourishing in recent years, led by the scholars represented in this volume. They continue to chart a course for the next generation of work on Chaucer and medieval English literary studies. Susanna Fein and David Raybin, editors of The Chaucer Review, have organized this volume to showcase those strands of inquiry and perspectives that are yielding exhilarating new slants on the poetic records of the Middle Ages. By combining twenty-first-century theoretical orientations and material perspectives, each of the twelve essays here adds contemporary relevance to our reading of Chaucer while remaining strongly grounded in his critical legacy. Using these methods to explore Chaucer's relationship to place, his contemporary sociolinguistic environment, and issues of humor, gender, and literary and political forces in his works, Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches not only presents experienced and budding scholars alike with an overview of modern approaches, but also provides a blueprint for Chaucer studies into the future.
Call Number: Miller PR1924 .C434 2010ISBN: 9780271035673
Ecofeminist Subjectivities (2011) by
This book analyzes the interaction between gender and species in Chaucer's poetry and strives to understand his adaptation of medieval discourse through an ecofeminist lens. Works that either speak of animals, or those with animals speaking, give new insights into the medieval textual handling of the 'others' of society.
Call Number: Miller PR1933.B57 K67 2011ISBN: 9780230115279
The Familiar Enemy (2010) by
The Familiar Enemy re-examines the linguistic, literary, and cultural identities of England and France within the context of the Hundred Years War. During this war, two profoundly intertwined peoples developed complex strategies for expressing their aggressively intimate relationship. Thisspecial connection between the English and the French has endured into the modern period as a model for Western nationhood. Ardis Butterfield reassesses the concept of 'nation' in this period through a wide-ranging discussion of writing produced in war, truce, or exile from the thirteenth to thefifteenth century, concluding with reflections on the retrospective views of this conflict created by the trials of Jeanne d'Arc and by Shakespeare's Henry V. She considers authors writing in French, 'Anglo-Norman', English, and the comic tradition of Anglo-French 'jargon', including Machaut,Deschamps, Froissart, Chaucer, Gower, Charles d'Orleans, as well as many lesser-known or anonymous works. Traditionally Chaucer has been seen as a quintessentially English author. This book argues that he needs to be resituated within the deeply francophone context, not only of England but the widermultilingual cultural geography of medieval Europe. It thus suggests that a modern understanding of what 'English' might have meant in the fourteenth century cannot be separated from 'French', and that this has far-reaching implications both for our understanding of English and the English, and ofFrench and the French.
Call Number: Miller PR275.N29 B88 2009ISBN: 9780199574865
PRIMARY SOURCES: TEXTS
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Archival Collections/Papers
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- The works of Geoffrey Chaucer : compared with the former editions, and many valuable mss. out of which, three tales are added which were never before printedIn Special Collections: ROBSN FOLIO PR1850 1721
The "three tales" mentioned in the title include: The coke's tale of Gamelyn; The marchant's second tale, or, The history of Beryn; and The adventure of the pardoner and tapster at the Inn at Canterbury.
The Canterbury tales ... / translated into modern English verse by Frank Ernest Hill (1935) by Call Number: Colby Annex: PR1870.A1 H5 1935
The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (1989) by
The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer is intended to make Chaucer;s texts accessible with a minimum of scholary interference. The critical, biographical, and linguistic essays are grouped at the end so as not to impede the approach to the text. By doing so, the student is able to enjoy the richness and humor of The Canterbury Tales as well as the beauty of Troylus and Criseyde. This collection will create a deeper appreciation for Chaucer and his genius.
Call Number: Colby annex PR1851 .F5 1989bISBN: 0030286123
