Chaucer and the Death of the Political Animal (The New Middle Ages)

Drawing from classical myth, the history of philosophy, literature, film, music, and painting, Workman connects the artistic claims of Chaucer and tests them against similar gestures in the history of philosophy and literature. What results is a radical retake on Chaucer as a philosopher and poet, upending any preconceived views. Chaucer And The Death Of The Political Animal Is An Experimental Metapoetics That Begins With A Simple Idea: The Most Interesting Thing About Geoffrey Chaucer Is Not That He Was Alive During The 1380s, But That He Was Alive When He Wrote The Canterbury Tales. From There It Suspends The Social And Political Background, Looks Horizontally At Recurring Platonic And Neoplatonic Philosophical Structures In The Texts, And Collects Them Into A Working Theory Of Art. What Results Is A Vision Chaucer's Poetry As Part Of A Long Literary Epistemology In The History Of Ideas, One That Wants To Empty Art Of Historical Being And Reconvene A Shuttered Symbolic Order That Existed Prior To The Fall. Finally, Workman Brings This Internal Mythic Conflict Between Art And History To Bear On An External Question: To What Extent Is Historicism's Method For The Poem-in-the-world A Responsible Measure Of The World-in-the-poem?-- A Radical Departure From Mainstream Historicist Criticism, Chaucer And The Death Of The Political Animal Builds A Chaucerian Metapoetics From The Perspective Of The Classical Platonic And Medieval Neoplatonic Traditions. Workman Identifies A Genealogy Of Poetry In Which History And Eternity Represent Warring Epistemologies, Each Desiring To Subdue The Other And Become The Dominant Knowledge Condition In Art-- 1. Poetry's Old War -- 2. The Broken Flood Of The Miller's Tale -- 3. The Runaway Gods Of The Manciple's Tale -- 4. The Lost World Of The Nun's Priest's Tale. Jameson S. Workman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "Chaucer and the Death of the Political Animal is an experimental metapoetics that begins with a simple idea: the most interesting thing about Geoffrey Chaucer is not that he was alive during the 1380s, but that he was alive when he wrote the Canterbury Tales. From there it suspends the social and political background, looks horizontally at recurring Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophical structures in the texts, and collects them into a working theory of art. What results is a vision Chaucer's poetry as part of a long literary epistemology in the history of ideas, one that wants to empty Art of historical being and reconvene a shuttered symbolic order that existed prior to the Fall. Finally, Workman brings this internal mythic conflict between Art and History to bear on an external question: To what extent is historicism's method for the "poem-in-the-world" a responsible measure of the "world-in-the-poem?""-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Title 10 Copyright 11 Dedication 12 Contents 14 Acknowledgments 16 1 Poetry’s Old War 19 2 The Broken Flood of the Miller’s Tale 39 3 The Runaway Gods of the Manciple’s Tale 69 4 The Lost World of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale 100 Notes 225 Works Cited 262 Untitled 281 Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Poetry’s Old War....Pages 1-20 The Broken Flood of the Miller’s Tale....Pages 21-50 The Runaway Gods of the Manciple’s Tale....Pages 51-81 The Lost World of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale....Pages 83-207 Back Matter....Pages 209-274