Chaucer's Agents: Cause and Representation in Chaucerian NarrativeChaucer's Agents draws on medieval and modern theories of agency to provide fresh readings of the major Chaucerian texts. Collectively, those readings aim to illuminate Chaucer's responses to two greta problems of agency: the degree to which human beings and forces qualify as agents, and the equal reference of "agent" to initiators and instruments. Each chapter surveys medieval conceptions of the agency in question-- allegorical Realities, intelligent animals, pagan gods, women, and the author--and then follows that kind of agent through representative Chaucerian texts. Readers have long recognized Chaucer's interest in questions of causation; Van Dyke shows that his answers to those questions shape, even constitute, his narratives. --Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. |
From inside the book
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... kind of cause to the representation of cause itself- that is , to agency . " Agency " is widely used but seldom defined . Indeed , academic writers use it in contrary ways . To linguists , philos- ophers , and most social scientists ...
... kind of cause to the representation of cause itself- that is , to agency . " Agency " is widely used but seldom defined . Indeed , academic writers use it in contrary ways . To linguists , philos- ophers , and most social scientists ...
Page 17
... kind of thing that can be an agent or can possess agency . For many writers , including most literary scholars , that thing is normally a human being . A book titled Agency and Structure can be assumed , correctly , to concern the ...
... kind of thing that can be an agent or can possess agency . For many writers , including most literary scholars , that thing is normally a human being . A book titled Agency and Structure can be assumed , correctly , to concern the ...
Page 21
... kind of cause : the human will , the fragmented psyche , social institutions or faceless bu- reaucracy , allegorical universals or abstractions , gods or God . In- deed , we classify narrative genres in part according to their ground ...
... kind of cause : the human will , the fragmented psyche , social institutions or faceless bu- reaucracy , allegorical universals or abstractions , gods or God . In- deed , we classify narrative genres in part according to their ground ...
Page 22
... kind of agent at a time . Chaucer's readers , on the other hand , have an excellent vantage - point on the multifariousness of agency— the diffraction , reconfiguration , and convergence of causes — that may threaten bureaucrats but ...
... kind of agent at a time . Chaucer's readers , on the other hand , have an excellent vantage - point on the multifariousness of agency— the diffraction , reconfiguration , and convergence of causes — that may threaten bureaucrats but ...
Page 23
... kind of actant : the abstract agents of classical allegory and the figural ones of Dante's Commedia ; the psychological projections of allegorical romance ; the stock fig- ures of fabliau ; the self - effacing selves of hagiography ...
... kind of actant : the abstract agents of classical allegory and the figural ones of Dante's Commedia ; the psychological projections of allegorical romance ; the stock fig- ures of fabliau ; the self - effacing selves of hagiography ...
Contents
13 | |
Dreaming the Real Chaucer Does Allegory | 40 |
Beyond Canacees Ring Animal Agency in Three Canterbury Tales | 73 |
He that alle thing may bynde The Agency of Chaucers Pagan Gods | 108 |
Goode women maydenes and wyves Exemplary Agency and Its Discontents | 148 |
That Am Nat I The Wife of Bath Criseyde and the Possibility of Subjective Agency | 180 |
Other editions - View all
Chaucer's Agents: Cause and Representation in Chaucerian Narrative Carolynn Van Dyke No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
acknowledges acts agent allegory animals auctor authorial agency authorship beast birds Boccaccio Boethian Book Cambridge Canterbury Canterbury Tales Cecilia characters Chau Chaucer Review Chaucerian Chauntecleer Christian citing Clerk's Tale Criseyde's critics crow Custance Delany discourse divine Donaldson Dorigen dream edited female fictional Franklin's Tale Gender Geoffrey Chaucer Griselda herte House of Fame human Ibid individual instance irony Jill Mann Knight's Tale L. D. Benson Law's Tale Leicester literary Literature Manciple's Mann Mars Medieval Melibee Middle Ages Minnis moral narrative narrator narrator's natural notes Nun's Priest's Tale Ockham Oxford Guides pagan gods Pandarus Parliament of Fowls particular Patterson Pearsall persona personification philosophers pilgrims poem poet Poetics Poetry Prioress Prologue readers representation represents rhetorical Riverside Chaucer Romance sexual shal similarly SNPro social Squire's Tale story suggests tale's textual thyng tion Troilus and Criseyde Troilus's University Press Venus vision voice WBPro Wife of Bath Windeatt women writes
References to this book
Singing the New Song: Literacy and Liturgy in Late Medieval England Katherine Zieman No preview available - 2008 |