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Chaucerian Ecopoetics performs ecocritical close readings of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry. Shawn Normandin explains how Chaucer's language demystifies the aesthetic charm of his narratives and calls into question the anthropocentrism they often depict. This text combines ecocriticism with reading techniques associated with deconstruction, to provide innovative interpretations of the General Prologue, the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's Tale, the Franklin's Tale, the Physician's Tale, and the Monk's Tale. In stressing the importance of rhetorical nuance and literary form, Chaucerian Ecopoetics enables readers to better understand the ideological prehistory of today's environmental crisis.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Chaucer and Ecopoetics.- 2. Ecophobia and the Knight's Tale.- 3. Nocturnal Ecologies: Metaphor in the Miller's Tale and the Reeve's Tale.- 4. Iterability, Anthropocentrism, and the Franklin's Tale.- 5. The Unnatural Personifications of the Physician's Tale.- 6. Ruminating On and In the Monk's Tale.
About the author
Shawn Normandin is Associate Professor of English at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea.
Summary
Chaucerian Ecopoetics performs ecocritical close readings of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry. Shawn Normandin explains how Chaucer's language demystifies the aesthetic charm of his narratives and calls into question the anthropocentrism they often depict. This text combines ecocriticism with reading techniques associated with deconstruction, to provide innovative interpretations of the General Prologue, the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's Tale, the Franklin's Tale, the Physician's Tale, and the Monk's Tale. In stressing the importance of rhetorical nuance and literary form,
Chaucerian Ecopoetics enables readers to better understand the ideological prehistory of today's environmental crisis.
Additional text
“This volume offers much for the Chaucerian critic committed to or simply intrigued by ecocritical approaches to literature. Normandin makes … appreciated tales vital to our understanding not just of Chaucer's time period, but our own.” (Susan Morrison, The Medieval Review, scholarworks.iu.edu, June 28, 2019)
Report
"This volume offers much for the Chaucerian critic committed to or simply intrigued by ecocritical approaches to literature. Normandin makes ... appreciated tales vital to our understanding not just of Chaucer's time period, but our own." (Susan Morrison, The Medieval Review, scholarworks.iu.edu, June 28, 2019)
