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Books Features

New Medieval Books: Chaucer Here and Now

Chaucer Here and Now

Edited by Marion Turner

Bodleian Library Publishing
ISBN: 978 1 85124 615 1

A collection of eight articles that traces how the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer has been interpreted and reimagined over the centuries. Works like The Canterbury Tales have inspired many people and led to much new media being created.

Excerpt:

Every century invents its own Chaucer. One of the most famous of all canonical poets, Geoffrey Chaucer has occupied a central place in literary history since his death in 1400. However, what he stands for has changed dramatically across time, as readers shape him according to their own interests and preoccupations. There is a Chaucer for every here and every now – from the here and now of sixteenth-century England, when readers turned him into an enthusiastic Protestant, to the here and now of 1970s Italy, when Pasolini imagined him as an earthy now of England’s nineteenth-century empire, when Chaucer was described as a keen footballer whose works were destined to spread English values across the globe, to the here and now of London in 2021, when Zadie Smith reimagined the Wife of Bath as a contemporary Londoner of Caribbean heritage.

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Who is this book for?

Published as part of the exhibition on Chaucer Here and Now, which is currently running at the Bodleian Library, this book makes a very good accompaniment for attendees. Those interested in Geoffrey Chaucer will definitely want to read this book (for both its articles and images), as will those studying medievalism.

The editor:

Marion Turner is the J R R Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford and a leading expert on Geoffrey Chaucer. She also curated the exhibition at the Bodleian.

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You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website

You can also buy this book from Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk

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