Product Description

The three Oxford Guides to Chaucer are written by scholars of international repute, with the purpose of summarizing what is known about his works and offering interpretations based on recent advances in both historical knowledge and theoretical understanding. They will provide readers at every level with new interpretations and ideas, with essential and up-to-date information on such matters as dating and sources and with analyses of thematic issues, structure, style rhetoric and generic relations brought right up-to-date for this second paperback edition. Helen Cooper's volume on The Canterbury Tales tackles these matters both for the whole work and for each individual Tale. It also includes a survey of literary responses to the Tales over the two centuries following Chaucer's death. The book is perhaps the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Tales yet produced, bringing together a wide range of disparate material and providing a readable commentry on all aspects of the work. It combines the comprehensive coverage of a reference book with the coherence of a critical account and since its first publication in 1989, has established itself as a standard work on the Tales.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21349 in Books
• Published on: 1996-02-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Review
Praise for the first edition: "Marked by wit, learning, intelligence, and that rarest of critical virtues, good judgement...this is now the first book on The Canterbury Tales to consult after reading the text itself."--Studies in the Age of Chaucer.
"Cooper's guide is a more powerful book than any previous aid or introduction to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It presents the lively and generous mind of a serious scholar and a sensitive reader."--Notes and Queries.
"A substantial work...with something of the proportions and production quality of a reference volume....This is a major book with many virtues...[and] much to offer its reader"--Review of English Studies.

Customer Reviews

Excellent guide to the Canterbury Tales
This is excellent component of Chaucerian studies. Students and general readers of one of the English language's great poets will find a book that takes a structured approach to exploring the depth in 'The Canterbury Tales'. If you are reading the Tales from cover to cover, the Oxford critical guide, itself chronologically arranged, facilitates an in-depth reading experience.

As critical guides go, this is a particularly readable text that manages to retain a high level of scholarship in its depth of enquiry and precision. What readers will find particularly helpful is the way in which Cooper divides her commentary on each tale:

Prologue
Date and Text
Genre
Sources and Analogues
Structure, Themes, and Style
The Tale in Context

This structure is not rigid and Cooper adds additional information and sub-headings depending on the tale, so that chapters on more ambitious works such as 'The Knight's Tale' have greater nuance, for instance 'A Note on Astrology', is intriguing from a historical and perceptual perspective. This shows a superb level of research and desire to create a comprehensive appreciation of the text.

Ultimately the most refreshing aspect of this guide is the critical good sense employed throughout; there's no intellectual showboating or dogmatic pursuits of a particular critical angle.