{"title":"Derek S Brewer","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"world-of-chaucer-book-derek-s-brewer-9780859916073","title":"The World of Chaucer","description":"Derek Brewer brought Chaucer and his world clearly to view, in a way never previously achieved, in the first edition of this book - now reissued with numerous colour and black and white illustrations to mark the six hundredth anniversary of his death.  Geoffrey Chaucer died on 25 October 1400. To mark the six-hundredth anniversary of his death Derek Brewer's classic book is once again available in a fully illustrated version: over one hundred contemporary colour and black and white illustrations, from the homely to the refined - from children's games and cooking to falconry and music-making - bring the late middle ages to life.  Chaucer's English world - that of the second half of the fourteenth century - is rich in interest of every kind, and Chaucer was a uniquely perceptive recorder of it. The tensions between tradition and innovation led to severe, sometimes violent, clashes; age-old customs were contested by the new individualism among the educated, by passionate religious dissent in high and low, and by peasants in revolt. London, caught up in the intellectual ferment, became an economic and cultural force to rival the great Continental cities, yet remained closely linked with the royal court and the church, strongholds of tradition. The English language came to its first full flowering since the Norman conquest, and many international influences were absorbed; among the turmoil, the arts flourished. Chaucer stood close to the centre of this world. He was one of the new literate laymen, a product of the merchant-gentry, from early youth a courtier, briefly a soldier, throughout his life an administrator, diplomat, scholar. He was also a very great poet: drawing freely from his work, Derek Brewer's biography gives a full and rounded picture of a distant but fascinating age.  DEREK BREWERhas written many books and articles on Chaucer and medieval and later English literature. He is professor of English literature emeritus in the University of Cambridge, and was Master of Emmanuel College from 1977-90.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49581770539281,"sku":"GOR002306128","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49723821031697,"sku":"CIN0859916073G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50508646777105,"sku":"CIN0859916073VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53382362726673,"sku":"GOR004734174","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0859916073.jpg?v=1751395791"},{"product_id":"companion-to-the-gawain-poet-book-derek-s-brewer-9780859915298","title":"A Companion to the Gawain-Poet","description":"The essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics include theories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. A full bibliography completes the volume. DEREK BREWER wass Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49661423649041,"sku":"GOR013717369","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50326761898257,"sku":"CIN0859915298G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50919271825681,"sku":"CIN0859915298VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50922607477009,"sku":"GOR006105215","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50922653155601,"sku":"GOR013455170","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008886046993,"sku":"NIN9780859915298","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52479391301905,"sku":"NLS9780859915298","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0859915298.jpg?v=1751330667"},{"product_id":"chaucer-and-his-world-book-derek-s-brewer-9780859913669","title":"Chaucer and His World","description":"Subtle and illuminating life of Chaucer, drawn against the turbulent backdrop of 14th century England.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49781927215377,"sku":"GOR003551453","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49798220513553,"sku":"CIN085991366XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52151623647505,"sku":"NLS9780859913669","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52955438252305,"sku":"GOR003673685","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/085991366X.jpg?v=1751108039"},{"product_id":"companion-to-the-gawain-poet-book-derek-s-brewer-9780859914338","title":"A Companion to the Gawain-Poet","description":"Essays intended as a companion to a reading of the works of the Gawain poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience  The essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume.   DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.    Contributors: DEREK BREWER, MALCOLM ANDREW, A.C. SPEARING, JANE GILBERT, MICHAEL J. BENNETT, DAVID AERS, RALPH ELLIOTT, MICHAEL THOMPSON, FELICITY RIDDY, ANNE ROONEY, MICHAEL LACY, A.S.G. EDWARDS, H.N. DUGGAN, ELISABETH BREWER, RICHARD NEWHAUSER, HELEN COOPER, NICHOLAS WATSON, PRISCILLA MARTIN, NICK DAVIS, DEREK PEARSALL, GILLIAN ROGERS, BARRY WINDEATT, DAVID J. 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Many famous stories, from the Old Testament, medieval romance and folktale, to Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies and even some great novels, present apparent inconsistencies or absurdities when judged as plausible representations of 'reality'. Yet the experience of many generations of readers and listeners is that such stories take a powerful hold on the imagination and memory, and create a strong impression on coherent significance. Symbolic Stories shows why the structure of these tales is so significant, and why they are repeated, both in the original and with variations, down the ages.   Professor Brewer reveals new aspects of the stories themselves by elucidating the implicit and symbolic meanings that lie below the literal narrative. The stories discussed are those that are especially concerned with the processes of growing up and coming to maturity. They are told from the point of view of the emerging individual as he or she passes through the rites de passage that allow disengagement from parents, self-realisation, the establishment of new relationships, and integration with society.   The bookdemonstrates certain characteristic themes and structures in these traditional stories, but is far from reducing them to a single formula. One of the main purposes is to show how selected stories of great artistic value establishtheir own individual meanings within the general pattern. There are new interpretations of the famous romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Malory's Tale of Sir Gareth, and of other romances. Shakespeare'sremarkable portrayals throughout his career of various aspects of the family drama are discussed, and the essence of a new theory of tragedy and comedy is suggested. The extreme type of traditional story in Europe is seen as the fairy tale, which is analysed to show how fundamentally such narrative differs from the novel, but Mansfield Park and Great Expectations are explored in detail to show their equivocal relationships to the tradition.   The book will appeal to all those who are interested in the structure of narrative, whether from the point of view of literature, psychology or folklore.   The late Professor Derek Brewer was Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge and Reader in Medieval English Literature in the University of Cambridge. He published numerous books and articles, especially on Chaucer, but on all periods of English literature.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52482555511057,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52482556625169,"sku":"NLS9780859910637","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780859910637.jpg?v=1759853399"},{"product_id":"proteus-studies-in-english-literature-book-derek-s-brewer-9781843842057","title":"Proteus: Studies in English Literature","description":"Classic essays on English literature, written in the late Professor Derek Brewer's characteristically lively and accessible manner.  Derek Brewer, here on the brink of his long and successful career, takes a look at issues in English literature which were to remain of enduring interest to him. Lecturing in Japan at the time, a country where English culture wasnot at the time well known and understood, he stepped back to get matters in focus. These pages provide a brilliant synthesis of the attitudes and understanding that informed English literature from the early middle ages to the twentieth century.  His special subjects are already to the fore: the medieval 'mindset', Chaucer, Malory, and the art of story above all. But his wide view also homes in on Shakespeare; on Wordsworth and the Romantics; and on E. M. Forster and modern novelists. Each of these topics Derek Brewer subtly contextualises with observations that are at once illuminating and informed by common sense. The whole is prefaced by a consideration of the important issues and preoccupations that underpin English literature, and how attitudes towards them evolved: morality, a sense of time, love, class and religion.    Professor Derek Brewer [1923-2008], medievalist and scholar, was Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1977-90.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52486188957969,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52486190137617,"sku":"NLS9781843842057","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781843842057.jpg?v=1759858840"},{"product_id":"geoffrey-chaucer-book-derek-s-brewer-9780859912952","title":"Geoffrey Chaucer","description":"These essays, all by well-known Chaucer scholars, discuss Chaucer's work in the context of the intellectual, social and artistic milieu of his time, and thus aim to make possible a richer understanding of the works themselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53607545143569,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53607545241873,"sku":"GOR002831361","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780859912952.jpg?v=1780058418"},{"product_id":"seatonian-exercises-and-other-verses-book-derek-s-brewer-9780906290613","title":"Seatonian Exercises and Other Verses","description":"This work offers a selection of poems from a lifetime's reflections on experience of war, love, integrity in suffering, and the problems of belief. 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