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11%OFFPeter W. Travis - Disseminal Chaucer: Rereading THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE - 9780268042356 - V9780268042356
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Disseminal Chaucer: Rereading THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE

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Description for Disseminal Chaucer: Rereading THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE Paperback. A tale that contains elements of a beast fable, an exemplum, a satire, and other genres. Num Pages: 432 pages, Illustrations. BIC Classification: DSC. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 229 x 152 x 28. Weight in Grams: 658.

Chaucer's The Nun's Priest's Tale is one of the most popular of The Canterbury Tales. It is only 646 lines long, yet it contains elements of a beast fable, an exemplum, a satire, and other genres. There have been countless attempts to articulate the "real" meaning of the tale, but it has confounded the critics. Peter Travis contends that part of the fun and part of the frustration of trying to interpret the tale has to do with Chaucer's use of the tale to demonstrate the resistance of all literature to traditional critical practices. But the world of The Nun's ... Read more is so creative and so quintessentially Chaucerian that critics persist in writing about it.

No one has followed the critical fortunes of Chauntecleer and his companions more closely over time than Peter Travis. One of the most important contributions of this book is his assessment of the tale's reception. Travis also provides an admirable discussion of genre: his analysis of parody and Menippean satire clarify how to approach works such as this tale that take pleasure in resisting traditional generic classifications. Travis also demonstrates that the tale deliberately invoked its readers' memories of specific grammar school literary assignments, and the tale thus becomes a miniaturized synopticon of western learning. Building on these analyses and insights, Travis's final argument is that The Nun's Priest's Tale is Chaucer's premier work of self-parody, an ironic apologia pro sua arte. The most profound matters foregrounded in the tale are not advertisements of the poet's achievements. Rather, they are poetic problems that Chaucer wrestled with from the beginning of his career and, at the end of that career, wanted to address in a concentrated, experimental, and parapoetic way.

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Product Details

Publisher
University of Notre Dame Press
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2009
Condition
New
Weight
633g
Number of Pages
456
Place of Publication
Notre Dame IN, United States
ISBN
9780268042356
SKU
V9780268042356
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Peter W. Travis
Peter W. Travis is Henry Winkley Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Language and Literature at Dartmouth College. He is the author of many influential articles and Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle.

Reviews for Disseminal Chaucer: Rereading THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE
"Peter Travis's long-awaited study of The Nun's Priest's Tale is without a doubt the most comprehensive and thorough treatment of the tale that we have or are ever likely to have. It is a bravura performance, an extremely well argued study that marks it as a significant contribution to Chaucer studies, one that will be closely read and consulted by ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for Disseminal Chaucer: Rereading THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE


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