Subject ill-served …

… The Bad Biographer’s Tale | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 Her discussion of “intertextuality” in Chaucer does work because Chaucer, like most classical and medieval writers, draws heavily on many writers who preceded him. However, the “places and spaces” framework quickly becomes formulaic and tiresome, and references to hybridity and liminality invariably signal a lack of careful analysis. References to “the liminality of death,” “the artisanal spaces of the Tower of London,” and the kidnapping of children as “a breathtaking display of appropriation” are unintentionally humorous.