Chaucer's gifts : exchange and value in the Canterbury tales /
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated literary work of medieval England, portrays the culture of the late Middle Ages as a deeply commercial environment, replete with commodities and dominated by market relationships. However, the market is not the only mode of exchange in Ch...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Cardiff :
University of Wales Press,
[2018]
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| Series: | New century Chaucer.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated literary work of medieval England, portrays the culture of the late Middle Ages as a deeply commercial environment, replete with commodities and dominated by market relationships. However, the market is not the only mode of exchange in Chaucer's world or in his poem. Chaucer's Gifts reveals the gift economy at work in the tales. Applying important recent advances in anthropological gift theory, it illuminates and explains this network of exchanges and obligations. Chaucer's Gifts argues that the world of the Canterbury Tales harbors deep commitments to reciprocity and obligation which are at odds with a purely commercial culture, and demonstrates how the market and commercial relations are not natural, eternal or inevitable, an essential lesson if we are to understand Chaucer's world or our own. |
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| Physical Description: | xi, 249 pages ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781786831682 1786831686 1786831694 9781786831699 |