Description
Book SynopsisA study of romance and the Orient in Chaucer and in anonymous popular metrical romances.The idea of the Orient is a major motif in Chaucer and medieval romance, and this new study reveals much about its use and significance, setting the literature in its historical context and thereby offering fresh new readings of anumber of texts. The author begins by looking at Chaucer's and Gower's treatment of the legend of Constance, as told by the Man of Law, demonstrating that Chaucer's addition of a pattern of mercantile details highlights the commercial context of the eastern Mediterranean in which the heroine is placed; she goes on to show how Chaucer's portraits of Cleopatra and Dido from the
Legend of Good Women, read against parallel texts, especially in Boccaccio, reveal them to be loci of medieval orientalism. She then examines Chaucer's inventive handling of details taken from Eastern sources and analogues in the
Squire's Tale, showing how he shapes them into the western form ofinterlace. The author concludes by looking at two romances,
Floris and Blauncheflur and
Le Bone Florence of Rome; she argues that elements in Floris of sibling incest are legitimised into a quest for the beloved, and demonstrates that Le Bone Florence be related to analogous oriental tales about heroic women who remain steadfast in virtue against persecution and adversity. Professor CAROL F. HEFFERNAN teaches in the Department ofEnglish, Rutgers University.
Trade ReviewA welcome beginning in what promises to be an extended and continuing dialogue on Chaucer's confrontation with the East... [The author] imaginatively initiates a provocative discussion that will surely continue along lines of investigation that she has identified. * ARTHURIANA *
Table of ContentsIntroduction - romance and the Orient; Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale", Boccaccio's "Decameron 5, 2" and Gower's "Tale of Constance" - mercantilism and faith in the eastern Mediterranean; two Oriental queens from Chaucer's "Legend of Good Women" - Cleopatra and Dido; Chaucer's "Squire's Tale" - content and structure; the Middle English romance of "Floris and Blauncheflur" - a question of incest, the double, and the theme of east and west; "Le Bone Florence of Rome" and the East.
