Browse Items (16470 total)

Traces the development of Yeats's concern with "writing for a listening audience," and identifies his reading of Chaucer in 1905 as crucial to this process. As several of his letters and lectures attest, Yeats for a time regarded Chaucer as the…

Reads the allusions to Chaucer's GP, Virgil's "Aeneid," and, most extensively, Pope's "Rape of the Lock" in Eliot's "The Waste Land" as signals to his rejection of the "Classical/Christian tradition."

Explores the allusion to Virgil's "Georgics" in "Faerie Queene" 1.1.50-53, arguing that Spenser "desexualizes the Vergilian model by removing [its] generative principle" (90) and thereby re-makes the Classical/Christian topos that underlies Chaucer's…

An exchange of letters in the PMLA Forum section that comment on openendedness and closure in CT and the influence of Arabic literary models on Chaucer.

Explores comic allusions in John Gay's pastorals "The Shepherd's Week" and "Trivia," along the way identifying "several allusions" to Chaucer's work in "The Shepherd's Week"--allusions to the Wife of Bath's red stockings, the use of "queynte" and the…

Traces the medieval tradition of translating or adapting Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" into vernacular languages, especially French, and argues that Walton's verse translation of 1410 is an "improvement upon his model, Chaucer's prose" Bo,…

Assesses depictions of the working class by Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the chronicler Walsingham, considering what they disclose about conditions and attitudes at the time of the 1381 Uprising (Peasant's Revolt). Sharply criticizes Gower's and…

Presents the text of the Middle English poem, "Lyarde," discussing it in light of Goliardic satire and identifying instances where the poem shares themes with parts of CT: the "sexual superiority" of clerics (the Monk in MkP and NPE), wives' control…

"This study argues that, in major Middle English works, authority is the central issue involved in concepts of character and of relationships beween characters. 'Havelok the Dane,' 'King Horn,' 'Sir Orfeo,' Malory's works, and 'The Canterbury Tales'…

Argues that "The Flower and the Leaf" and "The Assembly of Ladies" are both concerned with female chastity as a means to effective power, the first asserting this theme and the second expressing frustration with such assertions. Also surveys…

Using evidence of paleography, orthography, watermarks, and indications of provenance, dates booklet 1 of Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C.86, as the second quarter of the fifteenth century; dates booklets 2-4 as early sixteenth century.

Offers a "partial explanation" for the paucity of fabliaux in Middle English: lack of concern with courtly sentiment in Middle English romance fails to "provide conditions conducive" to "parody and ironization of romance" that is fundamental to the…

Assesses character names in works "from 'Beowulf' to Robert Henryson, tracing patterns in onomastic function, language philosophy, and literary form." Includes discussion of names from HF, TC, and CT.

Assesses "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell" with recurrent glances at its analogues, Gower's "Tale of Florent" and Chaucer's WBT. The life question in the "Wedding" and in WBT "speak directly to a perennial feminine plight" (69), and in…

Tallies Birney's contributions to Chaucer scholarship, particularly his studies that pertain to irony and close reading, and assesses their importance in the tradition of twentieth-century Chaucer criticism.

Surveys Joseph Conrad's allusions to Chaucer and to the Bible, and argues that in the novel "Victory" Conrad expresses his "sense of radical modern otherness." In Conrad's novel, "Jones's sexual anomaly mirrors a spiritual malaise," as does the…

Modeled on Chaucer's BD, although reshaped "radically," Spenser's "Daphnaida" is less a "traditional lament" than a "warning against grieving too much." Compares and contrasts the two poems to clarify their similarities and differences, and discusses…

Describes various kinds of "parliament-poems" in Middle English, focusing on PF as a model for others, and commenting on the depiction of the parliament scene in TC, Book 4, and its concern with "voting by voices" or assent. Summarizes Chaucer's…

Summarizes medieval attitudes toward dreams and traces their roots in the Bible and classical tradition, emphasizing their prophetic qualities. Then discusses dream vision conventions and their uses in "Pearl," "Piers Plowman," and several shorter…

Fire imagery and the theme of order in Dryden's adaptations of Homer, Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer (KnT, WBT, NPT, and Parson) evince that his "Fables" centers thematically on "natural order characterized by the paradox of constant change."

Summary (without text) and commentary on WBPT, arranged in sections, accompanied by glosses to Middle English phrases. Also includes a brief introduction to Chaucer, CT, and medieval antifeminism; commentary on characterization, the Wife's horoscope,…

Argues that internal evidence (meter, repetitiveness, exaggeration, etc.) is sufficient to establish that "The Fair Maid of Ribblesdale" is a parody, comparing examples drawn from the poem to similar ones in Chaucer's MercB, MilT, and, especially,…

Argues that medieval allegory and "much of science fiction" share a common "presupposition" of conveying an "abstract message" or "vision of truth," comparing various themes and devices of science fiction with examples drawn from medieval…

Challenges several claims made by Alice Miskimin in "The Illustrated Eighteenth-Century Chaucer," Modern Philology 77 (1979): 26-55.

Summary (without text) and commentary on the GP description of the Knight and on KnT, arranged in sections, accompanied by glosses to Middle English words and phrases. Also includes a brief introduction to Chaucer and his literature; commentary on…