Chaucer's Gifts

Exchange and Value in the Canterbury Tales

AvRobert Epstein

Häftad, Engelska, 2018

Del i serien New Century Chaucer

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Beskrivning

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated literary work of medieval England, portrays the culture of the late Middle Ages as a deeply commercial environment, replete with commodities and dominated by market relationships. However, the market is not the only mode of exchange in Chaucer’s world or in his poem. Chaucer’s Gifts reveals the gift economy at work in the tales. Applying important recent advances in anthropological gift theory, it illuminates and explains this network of exchanges and obligations. Chaucer’s Gifts argues that the world of the Canterbury Tales harbours deep commitments to reciprocity and obligation which are at odds with a purely commercial culture, and demonstrates how the market and commercial relations are not natural, eternal, or inevitable – an essential lesson if we are to understand Chaucer’s world or our own.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2018-02-01
Mått:138 x 216 x 21 mm
Vikt:354 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Serie:New Century Chaucer
Antal sidor:256
Förlag:University of Wales Press
ISBN:9781786831699

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Robert Epstein is Professor of English at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. He has published widely on Chaucer and late medieval English literature.

Innehållsförteckning

Acknowledgements Introduction: Chaucer’s Commodities, Chaucer’s Gifts 1 The Franklin’s Potlatch and the Plowman’s Creed: The Gift in the General Prologue 2 The Lack of Interest in the Shipman’s Tale: Chaucer and the Social Theory of the Gift 3 Giving Evil: Excess and Equivalence in the Fabliau 4 The Exchange of Women and the Gender of the Gift5 Sacred Commerce: Clerics, Money and the Economy of Salvation 6 ‘Fy on a thousand pound!’ Debt and the Possibility of Generosity in the Franklin’s Tale Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index