Chaucer ― Visual Approaches

This collection looks beyond the literary, religious, and philosophical aspects of Chaucer’s texts to a new mode of interdisciplinary scholarship: one that celebrates the richness of Chaucer’s visual poetics. The twelve illustrated essays make connections between Chaucer’s texts and various forms of visual data, both medieval and modern.

Basing their approach on contemporary understandings of interplay between text and image, the contributors examine a wealth of visual material, from medieval art and iconographical signs to interpretations of Chaucer rendered by contemporary artists. The result uncovers interdisciplinary potential that deepens and informs our understanding of Chaucer’s poetry in an age in which digitization makes available a wealth of facsimiles and other visual resources.

A learned assessment of imagery and Chaucer’s work that opens exciting new paths of scholarship, Chaucer: Visual Approaches will be welcomed by scholars of literature, art history, and medieval and early modern studies.

The contributors are Jessica Brantley, Joyce Coleman, Carolyn P. Collette, Alexandra Cook, Susanna Fein, Maidie Hilmo, Laura Kendrick, Ashby Kinch, David Raybin, Martha Rust, Sarah Stanbury, and Kathryn R. Vulić.

Susanna Fein and David Raybin are joint editors of The Chaucer Review and coeditors of Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches, also published by Penn State University Press. Fein is Professor of English at Kent State University, and Raybin is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University.