Browse Items (16529 total)

Suggests that "Alcestis enters English literature" in LGWP, briefly summarizing her appearance there, indicating that Boccaccio's "Genealogiae deorum gentilium" is Chaucer's likeliest source, and observing that "Alcestis' metamorphosis into a daisy…

Identifies several possible ambiguities of pronoun reference, syntax, and punning in the GP description of the Summoner (1.649-52), suggesting that they may make the character even more immoral and unreliable than he is usually understood to be.

Offers history of the rise of the mendicant orders and details the development of anti-fraternal criticism as background to the characterizations of Chaucer's Friar and the friar in SumT. Compares "point by point" Chaucer's characters with the "chief…

Qualifies scholarly claims that Sir Thomas Wyatt was the first to use "terza rima" in English poetry, observing that Chaucer used the verse form in a brief passage of "The Complaint to His Lady."

Characterizes the Man of Law in the GP as only apparently wise and busy, concerned with acquiring wealth, and gifted with an "unusual memory." Further, his opinion of Chaucer's writings expressed in MLP is "somewhat pretentious and condescending."…

Identifies a number of "accidental errors" in John M. Manly and Edith Rickert's 1940 "The Text of the Canterbury Tales"--some typographical; others, errors in data.

Glosses "blanket" in SumT 3.1751 as a "ragout made of the breast or shoulder, generally of veal" rather than a piece of cloth, and suggests that the context where it appears indicates "the gourmet tendencies" of the Summoner's friar.

Critiques earlier opinions on ClT, finding them to be flawed by imposition of irrelevant standards and failure to treat the tale's success in evoking "compassionate wonder." Explores the developments of characterization in the tale and a growing…

Compares SumT with analogous tales of the "Lover's Gift Regained," arguing that the comparison reveals the "sardonicism" of Chaucer's account. Suggests that this tone culminates in the sexual punning on "tallying" and "tailing" in 3.416 and 433-34…

Argues that ManPT combines with ParsPT and Ret to make a thematic grouping in CT, arguing that the fundamental theme of ManT is avoiding "jangling" or "loose speaking," including "frivolous story-telling." Also considers the dating of ManT and the…

Resists the emendatory tendency to adjust the Black Knight's age from 24 to 29 in order to align it with the age of John of Gaunt when Blanche died, suggesting that the poem is universal not "merely occasional."

Argues that the unifying concern of HF is "the relationship of men to the mutable world through the agency of Fame," assessing similarities with BD and PF as love-visions, the influences of Dante and Boethius, and connections among the "sister…

Glosses "hevenlich mede" in Truth (line 27) as "heavenly meadow" rather than "heavenly reward," adducing phonology and puns elsewhere in the poem.

Assesses in PF the narrator's limitations as a lover, his inability to "interpret or evaluate what he sees," and his "naïveté" as a poet--a reflection of Chaucer's own "amused understanding of the limitations of the love vision as a form for poetic…

Explores five passages from CT that stylistically and thematically "expose the limited vision of created character and creating narrator," pose the comic "contrast between what 'is' and what men see--of themselves and of others," and serve a…

Challenges Matthew Arnold's claim that Chaucer lacks "high seriousness," arguing that Chaucer's "Christian point of view" reflects seriousness beyond either comedy or tragedy, expressing pity and love for the human condition and humble acceptance of…

Sets Chaucer in the context of English literary history, comments on his biography, and commends "his two great masterpieces," TC and CT, summarizing plots and themes and commenting on his "poetic art": "he lacks sublimity," but "his sympathetic…

Surveys the influence on Chaucer's works (mostly TC and CT) of the writings of the Church Fathers, especially Jerome and Augustine, focusing in separate chapters on shared notions of "the treatment of marriage and virginity," divine and profane love,…

Emphasizes the role of Harry Bailly in Chaucer's characterization of the Nun's Priest, reading "broad irony" in NPE, despite its limited manuscript support. Addresses many of Harry's comments throughout Part 7, focusing on how the Host's displeasure…

Assesses the sequence and nuances of the terms used to justify Henry IV's claim to the English throne--election, inheritance, and conquest--in Chaucer's Purse and John Gower's "Cronica Tripertita," comparing them with historical documents that…

Quotes from published letters of Theodore Roosevelt (8 Volumes, 1951–1954) which express his opinions about Chaucer (e.g., SumT is "filthy") and Chaucer studies, especially that of Thomas R. Lounsbury (1892).

Quotes two allusions to Chaucer in letters by Robert Browning from 1845 and 1846.

Assesses "various appearances of the narrator" in CT to "determine how far the narrator can be taken as a contribution to our knowledge of Geoffrey Chaucer." Comments most extensively on GP and ThP, with attention to first-person pronouns, and on…

Locates precedent for the Parson's claim about the growth of sin among humans in Richard de Wetheringsett's "Summa de Officio Sacerdotis"--specifically, its reference to the "Canticum Exodi" in Exodus 15.9. Suggests more broadly that an "English…

Confirms that the friar's kiss of Thomas' wife in SumT is unseemly, adducing passages from Gower's "Vox Clamantis" and the "Regimen Animarum" that express concern about dangers of clerical kissing.