Chaucer's Gifts: Exchange and Value in the Canterbury Tales
Files
Document Type
Book
Description/Summary
Book description: 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 harbours 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.
ISBN
9781786831682
Publication Date
2018
Publication Information
Epstein, Robert William. Chaucer's Gifts: Exchange and Value in the Canterbury Tales. Cardiff : University of Wales Press, 2018. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.
Recommended Citation
Epstein, Robert, "Chaucer's Gifts: Exchange and Value in the Canterbury Tales" (2018). English Faculty Book Gallery. 74.
https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/english-books/74
Comments
Copyright 2018 Cardiff : University of Wales Press