A failed kiss of life.(Chaucer: Brief Lives)(Book Review)

Publication: Spectator

Publication Date: 24-APR-04

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2004 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)

CHAUCER: BRIEF LIVES by Peter Ackroyd Chatto, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 144, ISBN 0701169850

For a writer or critic to describe something as 'interesting' is, of course, neither revealing nor interesting. Which is a shame, for Peter Ackroyd is rather fond of this sort of information underload: Richard II is 'perhaps the most interesting and mysterious of English sovereigns'; the putative affair between Chaucer's wife and John of Gaunt 'would throw an interesting light upon his characteristic irony and detachment'; the actual affair between her sister and John of Gaunt 'throws an interesting light upon...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.