Derek S Brewer – författare

Analysis of the structure of traditional stories and fairytales, bringing out their shared characteristics, and showing why they remain so powerful and resonant today.Many famous stories, from the Old Testament, medieval romance and folktale, to Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies and even some great novels, present apparent inconsistencies or absurdities when judged as plausible representations of 'reality'. Yet the experience of many generations of readers and listeners is that such stories take a powerful hold on the imagination and memory, and create a strong impression on coherent significance. Symbolic Stories shows why the structure of these tales is so significant, and why they are repeated, both in the original and with variations, down the ages.Professor Brewer reveals new aspects of the stories themselves by elucidating the implicit and symbolic meanings that lie below the literal narrative. The stories discussed are those that are especially concerned with the processes of growing up and coming to maturity. They are told from the point of view of the emerging individual as he or she passes through the rites de passage that allow disengagement from parents, self-realisation, the establishment of new relationships, and integration with society.The bookdemonstrates certain characteristic themes and structures in these traditional stories, but is far from reducing them to a single formula. One of the main purposes is to show how selected stories of great artistic value establishtheir own individual meanings within the general pattern. There are new interpretations of the famous romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Malory's Tale of Sir Gareth, and of other romances. Shakespeare'sremarkable portrayals throughout his career of various aspects of the family drama are discussed, and the essence of a new theory of tragedy and comedy is suggested. The extreme type of traditional story in Europe is seen as the fairy tale, which is analysed to show how fundamentally such narrative differs from the novel, but Mansfield Park and Great Expectations are explored in detail to show their equivocal relationships to the tradition.The book will appeal to all those who are interested in the structure of narrative, whether from the point of view of literature, psychology or folklore.The late Professor Derek Brewer was Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge and Reader in Medieval English Literature in the University of Cambridge. He published numerous books and articles, especially on Chaucer, but on all periods of English literature.

This volume of essays is aimed at advancing the appreciation of Malory, an author who has always been enjoyed by the common reader, but is still sometimes underestimated by the critics. Despite an increasing number of articles onMalory, there is a need for a general survey of recent research, which Aspects of Malory provides. The volume opens with a note by the late Professor Vinaver on Malory's prose, and three essays on Malory's Englishness andhis English sources, including an essay by P. J. C. Field which argues for an English rather than a French origin for the Tale of Gareth. This is followed by two essays on Malory's French sources, by Jill Mann and Mary Hynes-Berry. Terence McCarthy re-exasmines the sequence of the tales, and three further essays look at the scribal and textual tradition of Malory's work, in particular the relationship between the Winchester MS, Caxton's printed version, and the history of the MS. Finally, Richard R. Griffith reconsiders the authorship question, and proposes a long-forgotten Thomas Malory as the most likely candidate. There is a bibliography of recent research compiled byProfessor Takamiya..`Full of sound scholarship'. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Subtle and illuminating life of Chaucer, drawn against the turbulent backdrop of 14th century England.`Brewer brings to his task a full scholarly knowledge of the sources of Chaucerian biography... Of obvious value to students reading Chaucer and to all who read him for pleasure; more advanced scholars will also find in it much toprovoke thought and advance understanding.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENTChaucer's tales, rich in comedy and pathos, have an immediate appeal; they draw freely and vividly from the romance and colour of the times in which he lived, and his world that of the second half of the 14th century is rich in cultural interest. It was a time of new exploration and new individualism, of peasant revolt and passionate religious dissent, and of a remarkable flowering of the arts. Chaucer lived at thevery centre of the action, and this book follows the stages of his career, illuminating with reference to the art and architecture of the time and through reference to his writings, the physicalenvironment and intellectual climate in which he lived. Reissue: first published 1978. DEREK BREWER was Professor of English Literature emeritus, University of Cambridge.

Essays intended as a companion to a reading of the works of the Gawain poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and PatienceThe essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume.DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.Contributors: DEREK BREWER, MALCOLM ANDREW, A.C. SPEARING, JANE GILBERT, MICHAEL J. BENNETT, DAVID AERS, RALPH ELLIOTT, MICHAEL THOMPSON, FELICITY RIDDY, ANNE ROONEY, MICHAEL LACY, A.S.G. EDWARDS, H.N. DUGGAN, ELISABETH BREWER, RICHARD NEWHAUSER, HELEN COOPER, NICHOLAS WATSON, PRISCILLA MARTIN, NICK DAVIS, DEREK PEARSALL, GILLIAN ROGERS, BARRY WINDEATT, DAVID J. WILLIAMS

Studies of the influence of the middle ages on aspects of European and American life and culture from 16c to the present day.The eleven essays in this volume are studies of specific instances of the influence and impact of the middle ages on Western life and culture from the sixteenth century to the present day. They cover a wide range of topics -literature, stylistics, lexicography, art, the cinema, philosophy, history and myth-making, oral traditions, feminist issues - and reflect the enduring influence of the middle ages on European art and life.Dr MARIE-FRANÇOISE ALAMICHEL is lecturer in English at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne; the late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English, University of Cambridge.Contributors: CLAIRE VIAL, DERICK S. THOMSON, KEES DEKKER, ERIC G. STANLEY, FLORENCE BOURGNE, RENATE HAAS, DEREK BREWER, LAURA KENDRICK, RENÉ GALLET, JAMES NOBLE, SANDRA GORGIEVSKI.

`Provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet.' CHOICEThe essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume.The late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.

A wide range of new scholarship on Chaucer's poetry.This collection of essays makes available a wide range of new scholarship on Chaucer's poetry. Opening essays address the issues of "Chaucerian representation" and "Chaucerian poetics", arguing for the multiplicity and complexityof what Chaucer "represents" and for the importance of his dual Anglo-French background in enabling him to articulate that complexity. Chaucer's use of Ovidian and Ciceronian sources and ideas is examined, and his pursuit of simplicity and suspicion of "delicacy"; the potent issues of sexuality and spirituality, and money and death (with Chaucer's own ending and his thoughts on last things) complete the collection.Contributors: DEREK BREWER, HELEN COOPER, PAUL DOWER, JOHN V. FLEMING, JOHN HILL, TRAUGOTT LAWLER, CELIA LEWIS, R. BARTON PALMER, WILLIAM PROVOST, JOHN PLUMMER, WILLIAM ROGERS.

Medieval humour revealed in an anthology of 80 tales from England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.During the middle ages, a common fund of comic tales circulated throughout Europe. Writers such as Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais and Cervantes drew on this material, and used it for their own purposes, but the brilliant medieval versions also deserve to be known in their own right. They are of great cultural interest and considerable entertainment value, varying from humour to farce, from sophisticated literary parody to blunt crudeness. Piety jostles blasphemy, and sex and death are everywhere good for a joke. The tales presented here, translated into clear modern English by experts in their fields, are from French, Spanish, Dutch, German, medieval Latin, Italian and English..Scholars and students and the general reader alike will find the book accessible, useful and enjoyable.The late DEREK BREWER was Professor Emeritus of English Literature, University of Cambridge.