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Secondhand book for sale
Scanned image of the book’s front cover

John Gardner.
The Poetry of Chaucer.
Published Carbondale: Southern Illinois U.P., 1978 reprint (previously issued 1978; hardback was 1977).
ISBN 0809308711.
Binding: paperback, perfect bound.
Printed in the USA.
Size: 152×227×23mm.
Page count: xxxv,408pp.
Main language: English.
Unused bargain: these copies have some shop wear, in particular these some mild indentations on the top edges at the front of the book; some evidence of long-term storage, covers slightly grubby.

This item £6.00
P&P inc. within the UK
(delivery outside the UK not currently available)

[Publisher’s price $26.00]
Weight without packaging: 648g.

How to order this book

From John Gardner’s preface:
“This book was originally designed as the second half of a two-volume work called The Life, Times and Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, but when I’d finished what I have now published as The Life and Times of Chaucer, I saw that my discussion of the poetry couldn’t be made to fit with my writing on Chaucer’s life. Writing biography, I had felt free to touch up the picture here and there, never altering facts, I hope, but using the tricks of a novelist to heighten their effect a little. Writing about Chaucer’s poetry, on the other hand, I use the second side of a novelist’s brain — the lobe that calculates and squints, studies older literature in hopes of understanding its methods and purposes with the greatest possible accuracy, perhaps so that someday, when it seems convenient, the novelist can steal them. The result is that this second book is completely different from the first in tone; different, too, in that it’s harder to read and will, I’m afraid, appeal to a narrower audience, mainly teachers and college students.”

Contents: Repetition, structure & poetic allusion in Book of the Duchess; The History of Parliament of Birds; The unfinished Anelida & Arcite & a few shorter poems — a chapter brief & disorganized, but rich in curiosities; Double sorrow (& joy) of love in Troilus & Criseyde; House of Fame, or “Dante in English”; The Legend of Good Women; To Canterbury & beyond — introductory remarks; Fragment I — General Prologue to the Cook’s Tale; Fragments II-V, from Man of Law’s Tale to Franklin’s Tale; Fragments VI & VII; Conclusion — Second Nun’s Tale to Parson’s Tale & Retraction.

Illustrations: no
Maps & plans: no

Notes: at end of book
Tables: no
Genealogies: no
Chronology: no
Glossary: no
Bibliography: no
Index: yes

[BML/UB]
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