Browse Items (16459 total)

Similar to gift giving as theorized by Jacques Derrida (in response to Marcel Mauss), the dividing of the fart in SumT is "an impossible" that prompts logical deliberation and logocentric reflection. Linked via punning, the giving of money in SumT is…

Provides comparative analysis of the modern Tunisian tale "Sabra," an analogue of ClT, told by a woman to an exclusively female audience. Includes summary of and commentary on Chaucer's "ambivalent and ironic version," plus other medieval European…

Explores the depictions of grief over lost children in the Wakefield mystery play "Slaughter of the Innocents"; a Middle English life of Saint Bridget; and ClT. The depictions present grief as variously natural, unnatural, and a response to conflict;…

Includes the GP description of the Sergeant of the Law (ll. 309-30) in an anthology of 100 lyrics and poetic excerpts that pertain to lawyers and legal practice. Brief notes at the end of the work.

Skilled in the law and both learned and adept in poetry, the Man of Law crafts a tale of sin, free will, and providence. Though Custance is steadfast, her will is free and consequential, the foundation of true judgment. MLT proposes a concept of…

The "temporal disorder" and "internationalism" of MLT--combined with its examination of competing familial and institutional loyalty--depict sovereignty as a redemptive governmental form capable of healing the ills of late medieval England, including…

For Chaucer, Rome is an ancient imperial capital, a goal of medieval pilgrimage, and a center of trade--trade in devotions, indulgences, and pardons that allies mercantilism and religion. Such a Roman transaction also involves relics or monuments,…

Argues that racial differentiation--generally associated with the early modern period--was not necessarily secondary to religious distinctions in the late medieval period, using MLT and other texts as evidence.

The BBC's 2003 adaptation of MLT updates Chaucer's Tale, incorporating plot, character names, and thematic elements such as faith, exile and return, trauma and healing, and time and repetition. Constance, a Nigerian refugee, finds love and fellowship…

Reviews scholarship that discusses analogues of WBT and hypothesizes the nature and date of the archetype of these tales, focusing on the relative chronology of major motifs, shared and unshared. A hypothetical summary of the archetype--presented as…

All of the recensions of the Prologue to "Confessio Amantis"--especially the Ricardian recension--reflect Gower's economic concerns. His Tale of Florent also engages commercial concerns, particularly those of marital contracts, although to a lesser…

Documents where wife beating was both allowed and forbidden in medieval canon and civil law, often presented in analogies to bishops' treatment of clerics and lords' treatment of slaves. Kelly comments on instances in CT, particularly in WBP.…

Testing the premise of A. C. Spearing's "Textual Subjectivity" (2005), Klitgård explores the dramatic monologues of the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner and uses of narrative personae.

Chaucer's intentional contrasting of the language of the Knight and that of the Miller challenges his readers' openmindedness. The Miller's obscene language is cleverly applied and should on no account be censored from prudishness.

In his conduct and dress, the social-climbing Reeve associates himself with the clergy--an association that the Miller recognizes and ridicules unmercifully.

RvT "confronts the paradoxical status of women's desire" in medieval Christian and feudal systems. The Tale's "significant divergences from the fabliau tradition" and several resemblances to the story of Theseus and Ariadne help undercut KnT; its…

In RvT, Chaucer's references to language, lore, and the North both explore uncanny (in the Freudian sense) political differences among regions and reveal notions of nation. The North or Northernism plays a small but significant role elsewhere in CT,…

Outlines the literary and social contexts in which late medieval English romances were produced. Assesses a number of these romances and their "afterlives," exploring their gender affiliations, uses of symbols, concerns with familial and cultural…

Through its several nested narratorial performances, each of which includes its own disavowals and subtle appropriations of authority, MLT renegotiates the relative power of spiritual and secular domains to control the interpretation and transmission…

Late medieval manuscript illuminations show Danes and other northern pagans with costumes and weapons that are emblematic of the Near East. Like MLT and Gower's Tale of Constance, these images indicate that the term Saracen included various…

Discusses (pp. 143-88) Chaucer's "great translation experiment" in PrPT, MLT, and SqT, arguing that Chaucer is "highly invested in the mechanics of miraculous and mundane translation" and that Custance is a "medieval example of a xenoglossic holy…

Compares the "theatricality of imagery" in MLT, particularly in Constance's prayer to the Virgin (2.841-54), with the Polish Marian crucifixion lament "Listen, Dear Brothers." Includes an English translation of the Polish lyric.

Hsy compares the ways MLT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 5.2 present transnational diversity, especially through their depictions of "littoral language," i.e., Custance's and Gostanza's communications with people on the shores of foreign lands. Both…

Explicitly influenced by KnT, Shakespeare's "Two Noble Kinsmen" adapts Chaucer's humor and creates a dark vision of the intersection of consumerism and sexuality.

Analyzes how art--canonical literature, in particular--helps to construct, consolidate, and transmit patriarchal ideologies that support violence and female subjection. Assesses KnT as an example of how a masculine gaze affects female identity.…