Browse Items (16369 total)

Compares and contrasts examples of diction in Dryden's translations of CT to explain why Dryden did not translate the low-style fabliaux and to show that Dryden's translations of Chaucer's humorous passages evince metaphysical wit rather than the…

Reconstructs the layout and functions of the rooms and gardens of the households in TC, drawing on details in the poem and evidence from fourteenth-century English architecture, with connections to correlative structures and scenes elsewhere in…

Offers a "third suggestion" to the discussions of what "seventhe spere" refers to in TC 5.1809, suggesting that Chaucer altered Boccaccio's eighth sphere (also a variant in TC manuscripts) and, counting inwards from the sphere of the fixed stars,…

Argues that complex acrostic anagrams in PF reveal that it was written on the occasion of negotiations for a marriage between Lionel of Clarence and Violanta Visconti; identifies French analogues to this intricate practice, and helping to date…

Seeks to illuminate "the kind of order that Chaucer was in the process of imposing" on the CT, focusing on the "definite beginning" and "definite end" rather than the "great middle." Treats GP, where Chaucer sets his topic ("variety of the created…

Charts the charactonyms of Lydgate's "Seige of Thebes" with those used in two analogues, possibly sources--the "Roman de Edipus" and the "Ystoire de Thèbes--comparing them with names and spellings used by Chaucer. When Lydgate departs from Chaucer's…

Identifies lines 1-4 of the "Speculum Stultorum" of Nigel de Longchamps as a source for the bird cacophony in PF 309-15, observing that Chaucer's "personal familiarity" with the "Speculum" is evident in the reference to "Daun Burnel the Asse" at NPT…

Provides lexical and grammatical evidence to argue that the verbal form "last" in ClT 4.266 "more than likely" means "extend in space," a "loan-sense from the French" influenced by development of the similar meaning of "dure."

Suggests that the "main source" of TC "may have been" Beauvau's "Le Roman de Troyle et de Criseida," a French prose translation of Boccaccio's "Filostrato." Compares 300+ brief quotations (in all three languages), commenting on verbal and structural…

Observes similarities in imagery, diction, and impact of portions of ParsT (Chaucer's interpolation in "lachesse" as a subset of Sloth) and PhyT (digression on governesses), exploring possible sources (especially St. Augustine), possible occasions of…

Argues that the astronomical conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in TC 3.624-25 does not allude to a specific event in 1385 (by which the central book of the poem has been dated) but to a more "general tradition" of foreboding, thematically appropriate…

Explains the exegetical tradition of associating Noah with astrological prediction of the Flood and suggests that in MilT "Hende Nicolas has built his entire scheme" to dupe John "around the astrological tradition of the Flood," thereby lending comic…

Identifies personal opportunities Chaucer had "to learn the special fame" of St. Clare, and suggests that his allusion to her in HF (line 1066) evokes "a contrasting silence" in a "passage descriptive of strident clamor."

Reinforces suggestions that the Black Knight's age at BD 455 should be emended to "nine and twenty yer" to coincide with the age of John of Gaunt at Blanche's death, justifiable because of evidence that twenty-nine years was considered to be young in…

Records Chaucer's consistent and conventional usage of "ye" and "thou" in FrT, showing how it achieves "irony and humor." Attends to manuscript variants and opines that "that the English language lost something by the abandonment of the singular form…

Describes and assesses the CT, with chapters on social and intellectual backgrounds, Chaucer's life, his use of pilgrimage and frame tale conventions, GP, and each of the individual tales, following the Ellesmere order. Discussions of individual…

Considers the two "observances" of May ritual in KnT (Emelye's at 1.1041-45 and Arcite's at 1491-1512), neither found in Boccaccio's "Teseide," identifying various French analogues that may have inspired Chaucer, while noting that he may also have…

Suggests that "charbocle" (carbuncle) in Th 7.871 may refer, not to part of the charge on Thopas' shield, but to his sword, with a jewel on its pommel.

Identifies a ballade by Eustache Deschamps (number 880: "Que diriez vous du froit mois de Janvier") as an analogue, possibly a source, of several details in MerT.

Characterizes the dreamer of BD as consistently stupid, a "nonpareil of dullwittedness"-- technically, psychologically, and allegorically.

Argues that a "shift to extreme piety" in ParsPT and Ret had "nothing to do with" Chaucer's "general plan" for CT, which the poet considered to be "a nearly complete work." Considers evidence of changes in Chaucer's plan and justifies them largely in…

Suggests that the "portraits" of Trojan war heroes and heroines in Benoit de Ste Maure's "Roman de Troie" are carefully individuated and arranged, and that Chaucer's "literary techniques" in the "sketches" of GP are similar to Benoit's in several…

Adaptation of WBT in archaized modern English prose as a script for presentation as a radio drama, with seven characters (King, Queen, The Young Knight, Old Woman, 1st Woman, 2nd Woman, and Wife of Bath as voice-over narrator). Duration:…

Argues that, modifying poems by Machaut to establish the narrator of BD as a comic, "doctrinaire" servant of love, Chaucer reveals how such a perspective is inadequate to "experience the experience . . . of perfection itself." The Dreamer learns of…

Argues that TC is a psychological "novel" insofar as it explores how the lovers' uses of courtly language and conventions disguise their "urgent sensuality" ("drängende Sinnlichkeit"), even from themselves. Compares and contrasts Chaucer's and…