352pages. poche. broché.  Fruit d'une alliance barbare et d'un grand amour déçu, Ludovic, enfant haï par sa trop jeune mère -Nicole -et ses... grands-parents, vit ses premières années caché dans un grenier. La situation ne s'arrange guère après le mariage de Nicole avec Micho, brave et riche mécanicien qui cherche à protéger Ludovic. Hantée par ses amours brisées, sombrant dans l'alcoolisme et méprisant son mari, la jeune femme fait enfermer son fils dans une institution pour débiles légers. Mais Ludovic n'est pas l'arriéré qu'on veut faire de lui. Il ne cesse de rêver à sa mère qu'il adore et qu'il redoute. Même une première expérience amoureuse ne parvient pas à l'en détourner. Son seul but, son unique lumière: la retrouver. S'enfuyant un soir de Noël, il trouve refuge sur la côte bordelaise, à bord d'une épave échouée, écrit chez lui des lettres enflammées qui restent sans réponse. Et c'est là-bas, sur le bateau dont il a fait sa maison, que va se produire entre Nicole et son fils une scène poignante de re-connaissance mutuelle -qui est aussi le dernier épisode de leurs noces barbares.

Virgin martyrs make up one of the largest categories of medieval saints. To judge by their frequent appearances in art and literature, they also figure... among the most venerated. The legends of virgin martyrs, retold in various ways through the centuries, illuminate trends in popular piety, values, and literary tastes.Chaste Passions contains sixteen English virgin martyr legends, each of a different saint and each translated into colloquial, modern English prose. Faithful in tone and meaning to the originals, Karen Winstead's lively translations allow contemporary readers to appreciate why virgin martyr legends thrived for hundreds of years. Winstead presents the tales in chronological order, tracing the effects of the composition and tastes of the audience on the development of the genre.The virgin martyr, Winstead tells us, escapes the confining female stereotypes-demure maiden or disruptive shrew-prevalent in writings of the period. Because nearly all of the texts were written by men but addressed to women, they exhibit a fascinating interplay between male views of so-called women's literature and the demands of their intended audience.Familiarity with this widely read genre is essential to a full understanding of medieval culture, and Chaste Passions is an excellent introduction to these often racy, sometimes comic, tales

"It gives me great pleasure to introduce Floricanto's New Series: Latino GLBT works. In this edition, we have "The Chat Room and Other Latino Plays"... which explores the complexities of Latino gay life through characters and events that challenge our expectations in both funny and disturbing ways. Several closeted men meet in a public space to flirt with each other, but end up discussing the joys and pains of fatherhood. A bisexual man surprises his gay partner with an unusual birthday gift: a Puerto Rican. A Latino-Rican decides to pursue a chat room date with a mysterious man that slowly takes over his apartment and even brings a woman in. All three plays are an invitation to revise our values and to experiment with new identities. " Carlos T Mock, MD "...That's one very important reason why this new line from Floricanto Press exists: to provide Latinos/as and other readers, writers, and interviewers with GLBT writers of quality who will provide significant work about the Latino-American gay experience. Writers like Leo Cabranes, whose plays Floricanto is putting out, in effect, leading the way. Leo addresses the issue: what does it mean to be a Latino-American in the U.S? How does the color of your skin, or your accent, or any of a dozen of perceived differences affect not only how you may be treated-demonized, vilified, adored, iconized-but also how you come to perceive yourself? And how does that change who you become? In Mortality, the changing and changeable nature of Latino American GLBT identity becomes a toy played with by the characters and the author to express and illuminate the underlying anxiety that this topic always incites. And we've not yet begun to explore other themes of this writing: machismo versus homosexuality, male versus female, and how or even why that should alter to catch up to the rest of the world. Or the role of the various religions-Catholicism versus Santeria for example-that are touched upon in these works. So much to read. So much to think of. Meanwhile welcome to this new line of Floricanto gay Hispanic books. I hope you enjoy the work, as much as I've enjoyed it." Felice Picano

A Greek-educated Syrian, Lucian wrote witty pieces that demonstrate a profound skepticism for religion and philosophy and encourage honest living and... good sense. “Chattering Courtesans” is a series of short dialogues in which the amusing gossip of “kept women” gives rise to a discussion of more serious subjects such as love, sex, and marriage. Other comic dialogues in this volume show Lucian making fun of fanaticism and mocking pretension, hypocrisy, and the vanity of human wealth and power, while in “Diatribes” he targets a range of subjects, from scandal and money to death, in order to demonstrate the follies of contemporary life. Also included here is Lucian’s most famous work, True Histories, which inspired imaginary voyages, from More’s Utopia to Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. First time in Penguin Classics Keith Sidwell's new translation captures Lucian's lively informal humor and rich variety of styles Introduction discusses the influence on Lucian of earlier Greek writers and philosophers, as well as Lucian's influence on later European culture Includes preface to each section, suggestions for further reading, explanatory notes, and a glossary of names  

Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), apparently a suicide at 18, posthumously astonished literary England when he was revealed as the author of a sequence of... famous and influential "medieval" poems he claimed to have discovered. An authentic talent as well as a literary counterfeiter, he is the guiding spirit of Peter Ackroyd's brilliant novel. In today's London, a young poet and an elderly novelist engage the mystery of Chatterton by trying to decode the clues found in an old manuscript, only to discover that their investigation discloses other riddles for which there are no solutions. Chatterton is at once a hilariously witty comedy; a thoughtful and dramatic exploration of the deepest issues of authenticity in both life and art; and a subtle and touching story of failed lives, parental love, doomed marriages, and erotic passions.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures,... errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures,... errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This concise and lively survey introduces students with no prior knowledge to Chaucer, and particularly to The Canterbury Tales. Provides essential... facts about Chaucer, as well as a framework for thinking about his poetry. Encourages an engaged reading of The Canterbury Tales. Introduces students to the historical and religious background needed to understand the contexts in which Chaucer wrote. Provides essential facts about Chaucer, as well as a framework for thinking about his poetry. Encourages an engaged reading of The Canterbury Tales. Introduces students to the historical and religious background needed to understand the contexts in which Chaucer wrote.

Renowned scholar of medieval literature, Lee Patterson,  presents a compelling vision of the shape and direction of Geoffrey Chaucer’s entire career... in Chaucer and the Subject of History.    Chaucer's interest in individuality was strikingly modern.  At the same time he was profoundly aware of the pressures on individuality exerted by the past and by society—by history.  This tension between the subject and history is Patterson's topic.  He begins by showing how Chaucer’s understanding of history as a subject for poetry—a world to be represented and a cultural force affecting human action—began to take shape in his poems on classical themes, especially in Troilus and Criseyde.  Patterson's extended analysis of this profound yet deeply conflicted exploration of the relationship between "history" and "the subject" provides the basis for understanding Chaucer's shift to his contemporary world in the Canterbury Tales.  There, in the shrewdest and most wide-ranging analysis of late medieval society we possess, Chaucer investigated not just the idea of history but the historical world intimately related to his own political and literary career.    Patterson's chapters on individual tales clarify and confirm his provocative arguments.   He shows, for example, how the Knight's Tale represents the contemporary crisis of governance in terms of a crisis in chivalric identity itself; how the Miller’s Tale reflects the social pressures and rhetoric of peasant movements generally and the Rising of 1381 in particular; and how the tales of the Merchant and Shipman register the paradoxical placement of a bourgeois class lacking class identity.  And Patterson's brilliant readings of the Wife of Bath’s Tale—"the triumph of the subject"—and the Pardoner’s Tale —"the subject of confession"—reveal how Chaucer reworked traditional materials to accomplish stunning innovations that make visible unmistakably social meanings.  Chaucer and the Subject of History is a landmark book, one that will shape the way that Chaucer is read for years to come.

The most comprehensive guide to Chaucer's work available, this volume features thirty-seven specially commissioned chapters by an international team of... esteemed contributors. Offering work from both academics with long-standing reputations and newer voices in the field, it combines general essays that provide background and contextual information with detailed readings of specific Chaucerian texts. The book devotes an entire section to Chaucer's "afterlife," which considers his reputation in later periods, his influence on later writers, and his presence in modern and contemporary culture. Guides to further reading for each chapter and a chronology are also included.

Chaucer made extensive use of Boccacio's romances as a basis for his major works, and any analysis of his handling of his sources must depend on a... knowledge of the Italian poet's work.

The Canterbury Tales is among the earliest of the great narrative poems written in the English language. Its author, Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400),... penned his masterpiece in a vernacular that was the standard dialect in the southeast of England during his lifetime--a language of rich vitality, but also very different from the English we speak today. This useful volume, updated with an enlightening new introduction by Andrew Galloway, presents readers with the vigor, liveliness, and humor of Chaucer's original Middle English poetry, interspersed line-by-line with Professor Vincent Hopper's modern, graceful, and easy-to-understand translation. This new edition also features four more of Chaucer's narratives, newly translated by Professor Galloway. The Canterbury Tales is a set of stories that a diverse group of travelers tell to one another at the end of each day. They had set off by foot on a religious pilgrimage from the Tabard Inn in London to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket in England's cathedral town of Canterbury. This volume opens with Chaucer's own famous Prologue, and then presents the best among those many tales, which demonstrate Chaucer's skill in portraying a wide range of very different personalities. For instance, we meet the religiously pious but haughty Prioress, the comically bawdy Miller, and the genially earthy Wife of Bath, among many others. Through it all, we are treated to Chaucer's own voice, which is worldly wise, often ironic, sometimes self-deprecating, and always good-natured. Here in a newly updated edition is an attractive and approachable textbook for students of English literature. It's also a richly entertaining volume for the enlightened general reader This new edition gives today's readers an awareness as never before that The Canterbury Tales is one of the great masterpieces of world literature. Continues to offer the benefits of the previous critically acclaimed edition by presenting the original Middle English of Chaucer's poetry with an elegant, direct, line-by-line and often word-by-word translation. This format gives students and general readers immediate appreciation of Chaucer's last and greatest narrative poem. Features a new set of up-to-date notes and resources for further study. Four additional key narratives newly translated from Chaucer's original text respond to the modern reader's willingness to explore The Canterbury Tales' brilliantly experimental approach to storytelling. Includes a stimulating new introduction that encourages modern readers to embrace various difficult-to-understand Chaucerian turns of phrase so that they can fully appreciate the fine artistry of Chaucer's poetic style.

Assuming no previous linguistic knowledge, this book introduces students to Chaucer's language and the importance of reading Chaucer in the original,... rather than modern translation. The book leads students gently through basic linguistic concepts with appropriate explanation, highlighting how Chaucer's language differs from present-day English and the significance of this for interpreting his work. Close analysis and comparison with other writers is used to show how Chaucer drew on the variety of Middle English to achieve particular poetic effects.