Reviews for Chaucer's Body: The Anxiety of Circulation in the Canterbury Tales

The average rating for Chaucer's Body: The Anxiety of Circulation in the Canterbury Tales based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-08-12 00:00:00 Mark Bradac Sheck's Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture looks at how women in Carolingian, Anglo-Saxon and Ottonian Europe developed a sense of self, gender and identity and how those issues could be represented both by those women and by others. She focuses primarily on literary texts'hagiography, poetry, and especially the writings of the famous tenth century canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. The topic is an interesting one, but not perhaps developed here as fully as it could be'I wonder if the author didn't have much time to revise her doctoral dissertation into this book. The more literary elements of Reform and Resistance I found sometimes hard to follow because of a reliance on litcrit jargon (and lengthy quotes from other scholars and theorists) and terms and concepts whose scope were often not defined; the more historical elements I either found rather standard or over-generalisations. Sheck's writing is also pretty categorical and binary'things are either-or in a way I found unsatisfying. An interesting topic in search of a better treatment.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-10-05 00:00:00 Shannon Lange This is a lovely book with high production values that suit its subject admirably. It describes the physical and material world of the Roman empire as it appeared, smelled, felt and tasted to the Romans who lived then. It covers a period from the end of the Republic to about midway through the Principate and is nicely sited within the sources. Dalby says in his introduction that he intended the book as a companion to reading the original literature and sources, and to that extent it works admirably. It really gives a sense of the sensuality of the Roman world: roses, cinnamon oil, juicy peaches. Well worth a read if you're either studying classical antiquity or are simply interested in the look, feel, smell and touch of the Roman world.