Chaucer's Verse Art in Its European Context, Hardcover by Duffell, Martin J., ISBN 0866985697, ISBN-13 9780866985697, Brand New, Free shipping in the US

The feature of Geoffrey Chaucer's (1) poetry that is most distinctive is not its content, says Duffell, but its form. First, Chaucer dared to compose in the newly respectable English rather than the conventional and established Latin and French. Chaucer played no small part in making English--and his East Midlands dialect of it--the language first of England, then of North America, and then of the world. Secondly, he says, Chaucer crafted verses that became the canonical forms of written poetry in English. His verse craft, unlike his social attitudes and his stories, was highly original: his longer line in particular had many features found in no other poet or language. He analyzes such aspects as design and instance, versifying in England, metrical stylistics, and the Scottish Chaucerians. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR ()