Browse Items (16377 total)

Observes differences between January's reference to proverbially "sotile clerkis" (MerT 4.1427) and the Wife of Bath's reference to proverbially "parfyt" ones (WBT 3.44c; perhaps cancelled). The first is anti-clerical; the latter pro-clerical, and…

Offers the image of unholy clerics as rusted gold in Robert Grosseteste's "Epistolae" as a possible source of the use of the image by Chaucer's Parson in GP 1.500.

Posits that John of Salisbury's "Policraticus" is the source of the closing comment of the GP description of the Clerk (GP 1.308); "gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."

Compares and contrasts the uses of northern dialectical words and forms in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscript versions of RvT, assessing J. R. R. Tolkien's evaluations of them (1934), and extending the discussion beyond northern forms to…

Compares and contrasts Chaucer's "Pandare" of TC with Shakespeare's Pandarus of "Troilus and Cressida," emphasizing the degenerate nature of the latter and Shakespeare's reduction of the "great depth of . . . personality" that characterizes…

Suggests that "colour" in the description of Chauntecleer (NPT 7.2864) means "coler" or "neck" rather than "color."

Explores the "appropriateness" of Chaucer's "only original and direct reference to St. Anne," in FrT 3.1613. Mentions Chaucer's two other references to St. Anne, derived from Dante, and offers evidence that Anne of Bohemia was associated with St.…

Studies the Christian and Platonic underpinnings of romantic love in Renaissance drama and poetry, exploring its roots in courtly traditions, and distinguishing it from love depicted by Augustan, Romantic, and modern writers. A section on Chaucer…

Introduces Chaucer's life and works to "those who are new readers" of the poet, evoking a sense of late-medieval life, especially London, Chaucer's court life, and international contexts. Explicates the tales and tellers of CT in thematic chapters,…

Maintains that the Summoner's fondness for "overheating foods" conveys lechery, adducing evidence from Reginald Pecock's fifteenth-century "The Reule of Crysten Religioun."

Observes that William Dunbar ridicules sexual impotence by means of the image of a dog ineffectively lifting its leg and maintains that the image and its implications derive from the "striking (and probably original)" use in ParsT 10.858,

Examines the characters of Griselda and Walter in ClT, with particular attention to the diction associated with them: "bountee" and "sadnesse" for Griselda and "shapen" for Walter. Also examines the words the characters do and do not use.

Biographical dictionary of some 200 political and cultural people of late-medieval England, "Englishmen" and "Englishwomen," along with "foreigners prominent in English history," arranged chronologically by life-dates, with descriptive and…

Summarizes ClT, describing it as a successful riposte to WBT and a victory for "book-learning."

Argues that the astrological data in GP and MLH establish the date of the beginning of the Canterbury pilgrimage as April 17, the same day as the departure of Noah's ark, evoking notions of sinfulness and salvific baptism, reinforced by imagery of…

Argues that in Book 4 of TC Chaucer presents a "conflict between reason and desire" (amplified from Boccaccio's "Filostrato"), helping to characterize and evaluate Troilus as, simultaneously and ambiguously, "both strong and weak," reasonable as a…

Argues that the old man of PardT is neither a Messenger of Death nor Old Age personified, but a figure of the exemplary wisdom and virtue of the aged, set in contrast the youthful rioters and their foolish avarice. Compares Chaucer's "aged stranger"…

Re-examines the narrator's eight-year sickness in BD, surveying previous commentary, and arguing that, unlike in Chaucer's French sources, the illness is insomnia rather than love-sickness and that God rather than a paramour is his only physician. As…

Investigates the dramatic ironies of PardPT (comparing them with those of WBPT), arguing that the Pardoner does not reveal "more than he intends, but rather the converse": that none of the pilgrims "is able to see the full meaning of what he says"…

Characterizes the Squire as a "young man among his elders" on the pilgrimage, describing his "nervous, apologetic tone" that derives from his uses and abuses of "rhetorical decorum, "tinged with "self-regard" and snobbish "anti-intellectualism." The…

Explores the background and implications of the reference to "seinte Note" (St. Neot) and the possibility of punning in "viritoot" in MilT 1.3770-71.

Close comparison of passages in TC and their sources in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" discloses how Chaucer "sets in motion" early in his poem "a train of events whose implications go far beyond the immediate moment, perhaps beyond the love story itself,"…

Explores the Augustinian "figurative implications" of PrT, identifying a "clear symbolic pattern" evident in interpreting it Scripturally--the "childishness" of the teller and her protagonist, the literalness of the Jews, echoes of the liturgy of the…

Argues that FranT is one of Chaucer "satiric masterpieces" and that it reveals "how ludicrously and inadequately the Franklin grasps the essence of gentle behavior." The Franklin is well intended, but the morality and reasoning of his Tale are…

Describes the development of John Gower's critical reputation, his life records, his literary career (including attention to manuscripts, sequence of composition, and revisions), the major social and political themes of his works, and his…