Book description
Brian Stone gives a zestful account of all Chaucer’s narrative poems and the chief of the few lyrics, offering a critical introduction in each case. He encourages response to, and understanding of, Chaucer’s achievement in narrative poetry, which accommodates extraordinary varieties of humour and genuine pathos. He also lluminates Chaucer’s formidable learning in the classical, Christian and courtly traditions and in science, with frequent cross-reference to the chapters on specific poems. Chaucer’s transformations on material drawn from Ovid, Virgil and Dante, his use of The Romance of the Rose and his grasp of sermon and devotional literature receive attention as essentials in the study of this greatest of English medieval poets.
