Description
Book SynopsisMyles challenges the convention of the `medieval mind' and perceives new semantic sophistication in Chaucer's language.NB DSB BLURB ON CERTAIN OCCASIONS What is the difference between saying something and meaning it, and saying something and not meaning it? A modern question. A Chaucerian question. Through his analysis of intentionality and the metaphysics of speech, Robert Myles shows why Chaucer's appreciation of the functioning of language and thought
could be `modern'. Through his analysis of Chaucer's works, particularly the
Friar's Tale, Myles demonstrates that Chaucer's understanding of these
is modern and the myth of the medieval mind as other than our own is exploded. The medieval belief in intentionality, the object-directedness of all beings, allowed appreciationof a fact: thought and language
areintentional. On a practical level Chaucer deliberately exploits three-level semantics (signs are simultaneously mind-drected and world-directed) to create `realistic' fiction in the modernliterary sense of the term. Myles also argues that Chaucer is a realist in the philosophical sense, a view which goes counter to the current of much recent criticism. This book will not only be a challenging addition to medievaland Chaucerian studies, but has interesting implications for the historical study of intentionality, semiotics and epistemology.
DR ROBERT MYLESis senior lecturer at the English and French Language Centre, McGill University, and a research fellow at the Department of English, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Trade ReviewThe most important contribution to considerations over the past decade of the philosophical components of Chaucer's poetry, his psychology, and his semiotic theory... The best discussion I know of the central component of Chaucer's philosophical disposition - intentionality. The argument combines a rich understanding of medieval philosophical tradition in these matters, useful comparisons with 20th-century writings on the topic, and, especially, a lively and just application of the materials to the understanding of Chaucer's poetry. SPECULUM [Russell A. Peck]Joins the ranks of only a handful of sustained, book-length studies of the philosophical implications of Chaucer's poetry, and for this reason it represents an important contribution to the field. STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCERWith the panache and conviction of a medieval theologian (but with the benefit of modern linguistic theory and semiotics) [Miles] deploys an argument dazzling in its learning, careful in its categories, subtle in its development, and irresistible in its logic. -- Peter Brown * MLR *
Table of ContentsPart 1 Chaucerian realism: "Realisms" and nominalism - sources of confusion; major misunderstandings - Robert M. Jordan; major misunderstandings - nine more critics; Chaucer's ethical realism; "Wordes white" and "ententes black" - Chaucer, ethics and language. Part 2 The thesis of intentionality - medieval and modern: the thesis of intentionality - the linguistic return; "Entente" and "intentio" - medieval psycholinguistics; intentionality, creationism, and language; Chaucer and the medieval thesis of intentionality; signs and psychology - the thesis of intentionality. Part 3 Judeo-Christian semiological metaphysics - Chaucer's metaphysical option: creationism - presence and/or absence; the metaphysics of presence and absence; the metaphysics of speech; metaphysics and language; personalism - "imago Dei/imago hominis"; semiological metaphysics. Part 4 Medieval and modern understandings of mode of presentation: the modern understanding of mode of presentation; four medieval understandings of mode of presentation; the theology of "uti" and "frui" as mode of presentation; the category of relation; faculty psychology, logic, and first and second intentions; negative and positive theology and analogical thinking; three-level semantics; three-level semantics from Augustine to Frege. Part 5 Chaucerian entencioun - mode of presentation and three-level semantics in the "Friar's Tale": some "ententes" of "rente"; "rentes" and "brybes"; yeoman, "yeoman", and the Liar paradox; "rentes," "lords," "maisters," "yemen," "baillyves," "develes," "somonours," and "theves"; the field expands - "rente," "profit," "fruyt," "purchas," "wynnyng"; the field of association of "entente"; telling confessions - the "entente" of "repente"; willing and nilling - prayers meet preyers; the "entente" of curses; the Carter's curse; metonymic multiplicity or the mystery of the widow's "panne". Part 6 Intentionality - the couplings of a fool: the "Friar's Tale" and the grammar of sex; summoners and the grammar of sex; the couplings of a fool.
