Overview

Building on recent work in critical animal studies and posthumanism, this book challenges past assumptions that animals were only explored as illustrative of humanity, not as interesting in their own right. The contributors combine close reading of Chaucer's texts with insights drawn from cultural or critical animal studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Carolynn Van Dyke
Publisher:   Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.510kg
ISBN:  

9780230338586

ISBN 10:   0230338585
Pages:   286
Publication Date:   25 October 2012
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: In Hir Corages: Chaucer and the Animal Real; C.Van Dyke PART I: THE NATURAL CREATURE Among All Beasts: Affective Naturalism in Late Medieval England; A.Fradenburg Feathering the Text; C.Freeman Shrews, Rats, and a Polecat in ?The Pardoner's Tale; S.Feinstein  & N.Woodman PART II: ANIMAL LESSONS Chaucer's Chicks: Feminism and Falconry in ?The Knight's Tale, The Squire's Tale, and The Parliament of Fowls; S.Gutmann Foiled by Fowl: The Squire's Peregrine Falcon and the Franklin's Dorigen; L.K.Stock That Which Chargeth Not to Say: Animal Imagery in Troilus and Criseyde; C.Van Dyke PART III: BECOMING-ANIMAL Avian Hybridity in The Squire's Tale: Uses of Anthropomorphism; S.D.Schotland Reimagining Natural Order in The Wife of Bath's Prologue; L.Wang Contemplating Finitude: Animals in The Book of the Duchess; C.Roman PART IV: CONTESTED BOUNDARIES Animal Agency, the Law of Kynde and Chaucer's Message in The Book of the Duchess; R.R.Judkins A beest may al his lust fulfille: Naturalizing Chivalric Violence in Chaucer's Knight's Tale; J.Withers A Fourteenth-Century Ecology: The Former Age with Dindimus; K.Steel PART V: CROSS-SPECIES DISCOURSE Chaucer's Chauntecleer and Animal Morality; M.Palmer Browne Talking Animals, Debating Beasts; W.A.Matlock Species or Specious? Authorial Choices in The Parliament of Fowls; M.Ridley Elmes Chaucer's Cuckoo and the Myth of Anthropomorphism; L.Kordecki Afterword: Gender, Genre, Genus; C.Van Dyke

Reviews

'This invigorating collection will prompt us to rethink our assumptions about natural sciences both medieval and modern, and especially about the pervasive habit of anthropomorphizing, whether by Chaucer or by modern scholars. These essays use a range of disciplinary perspectives to take full account of what Chaucer knew and thought about the rest of the natural world. They urge us, instead of blithely appropriating Chaucerian beasts (and especially birds!) as figures for human meanings, to pause over the literal animals to see what new things they can tell us.' - Karla Taylor, University of Michigan<br><br>

'This invigorating collection will prompt us to rethink our assumptions about natural sciences both medieval and modern, and especially about the pervasive habit of anthropomorphizing, whether by Chaucer or by modern scholars. These essays use a range of disciplinary perspectives to take full account of what Chaucer knew and thought about the rest of the natural world. They urge us, instead of blithely appropriating Chaucerian beasts (and especially birds!) as figures for human meanings, to pause over the literal animals to see what new things they can tell us.' - Karla Taylor, University of Michigan<br><br><br>'Chaucer's paradoxical 'animal real' unfolds through this comprehensive investigation of nonhuman figures initially written with feathers on the parchment body in pursuit of abstract universals. The essays invigorate Chaucerian studies with arguments that suture the historiography of sentience, continental philosophy, and material culture with literary criticism. And they offer a timely corrective to the presentist orientation of interdisciplinary animal studies by foregrounding the question: why animals then?' - Susan McHugh, professor of English, University of New England<br>

This book of sixteen short essays offers Chaucerians an array of perspectives, some theoretically adept, others easing readers gently into critical animal studies. - The Medieval Review 'Dyke has assembled a timely collection, since critical animal studies have risen recently in status and visibility...this volume will likely be of some interest to researchers working on medieval attitudes toward the animal, and the brevity of the essays may make them suitable for the undergraduate classroom as well...Recommended.' - Choice

Author Information

Carolynn Van Dyke is Francis A. March Professor of English at Lafayette College.

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