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An outstanding poem and a consummate example of employing the dream vision technique. It is one of the longest works of Chaucer. The poet unfolds ten stories of virtuous women in nine sections. It is one of the first mock-heroic works in English Literature. Inspirational!...
Essays re-examining the Legend of Good Women, placing it in its cultural and historical context.
"Professor Collette's approach to this challenging and provocative poem reflects her wide scholarly interests, her expertise in the area of representations of women in late medieval European society, and her conviction that the Legend of Good Women can be better understood when positioned within several of the era's intellectual concerns and historical contexts. The book will enrich the ongoing conversation among Chaucerians as to the significance of the Legend, both as an individual cultural production and an important constituent of Chaucer's poetic.achievement. A praiseworthy and useful monograph." Professor Robert Hanning, Columbia University. The Legend of Good Women has perhaps not always had the appreciation or attention it deserves. Here, it is read as one of Chaucer's major texts, a thematically and artistically sophisticated work whose veneer of transparency and narrow focus masks a vital inquiry into basic questions of value, moderation, and sincerity in late medieval culture. The volume places Chaucer within several literary contexts developed in separate chapters: early humanist bibliophilia, translation and the development of the vernacular; late medieval compendia of exemplary narratives centred in women's choices written by Boccaccio, Machaut, Gower and Christine de Pizan; and the pervasive late fourteenth-century cultural influence of Aristotelian ideas of the mean, moderation, and value, focusing on Oresme's translations of the Ethics into French. It concludes with two chapters on the context of Chaucer's continual reconsideration of issues of exchange, moderation and fidelity apparent in thematic, figurative and semantic connections that link the Legend both to Troilus and Criseyde and to the women of The Canterbury Tales. Carolyn Collette is Emeritus Professor of English Language and Literature at Mount Holyoke College and a Research Associate at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York.
An examination of female same-sex desire in Chaucer and medieval romance.
Dispatched to Florence in 1373 to secure a loan for Edward III, poet and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer encounters resistance from the banker's blind brother, a situation that is further complicated when the banker is found murdered.
It is only a few months ago that we brought before the notice of our readers Professor Skeat's edition of the Minor Poems of Chaucer, and now we have the pleasure of welcoming an edition of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, the work of the same indefatigable scholar. Professor Skeat infers from various notices in other poems of Chaucer, and from internal evidence, that the present poem was begun in the spring of 1385, so that it was the immediate precursor of The Canterbury Tales. In the Introduction to the Man of Lawes Prologue Chaucer expressly refers to this poem, which he is pleased to call "the saintes legende of Cupide," i. e. the Legend of Cupid's Saints. The poem consists of a succession of tales, and each tale relates the story of some woman famous in love. We are able to infer from lists in two other poems of Chaucer, that the poet's plan was to write the stories of Alcestis and of nineteen other women; but long before he had completed the plan he grew tired of the task, and at last gave it up in the middle of a sentence. Instead of twenty stories we have in the present poem only ten, written in nine Legends. The names of the ten holy martyrs of love are Cleopatra, Thisbe of Babylon, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucretia, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis, and Hypermnestra. Professor Skeat thinks that we may be quite sure that such stories of " martyred" women were suggested by Ovid's Heroides, and Boccaccio's book entitled De Claris Mulicribus, a work containing 105 tales of illustrious women, briefly told in Latin prose. Hence no doubt the title of Chaucer's poem, The Legend of Good Women. --The Oxford Magazine, Vol. 8.
In this exquisite collection of essays and photographs, women writers pay tribute to some of the most influential women of our time. Spanning our century and culture, these intimate portraits reveal both writer and subject in fifty inspired pairings. Some subjects and writers included in this book are: Elizabeth Leonard on Nicole Kidman; Jennet Conant on Barbara Walters; Andrea Leand on Venus and Serena Williams; Sarah Goldman on Cathy Freeman; Gail Sheehy on Hilary Clinton; Holly Brubach on Maria Callas; Linda Richardson on J.K. Rowling and Melissande Clarke on Cate Blanchett. Legends 2 is a provocative celebration of both the strengths and imperfections of fifty courageous women who have changed the world. Each inspiring piece is accompanied by a gorgeous duotone photograph by such eminent photographers as Stephen Korbet, Michael Collopy, Annie Leibovitz, Stephen Frank and Nigel Barker. Spanning the arts, politics, literature, science, and sports, these essays and photographs capture the rich texture of fifty extraordinary women s lives what has made their contributions legendary and their legacies timeless.