Browse Items (16470 total)

Ginsberg considers Boccaccio's tale of Menedon (Filocolo 4) as a "translation" of FranT, as well as vice versa, exploring the "mode of meaning" particular to each version. Differences in ideology between trecento Italy and Chaucer's London encourage…

Wright argues that the conditional faith and reciprocal acceptance of narrative reception are intrinsic to human communication and that FranT explores similar principles and their relations to love. The love between Dorigen and Aurelius gives way to…

Surveys approaches to FranT and discusses it as "an exemplum on a young man's learning of gentillesse, by way of serving an apprenticeship in love." Set against actions in other Breton lays, Aurelius's behavior reflects the gentillesse that the…

Explores the late medieval traditions of the Wild Man and idealized primitivism, arguing that they are useful in understanding and interpreting Chaucer's additions to the Boethian materials in Form Age.

Differences in prose style, in syntactic and conceptual organization, and in levels of technical expertise between Astr and Equat indicate that Chaucer did not write the latter. Equat shows more skill in calculation, but Astr demonstrates more…

Stanley comments on the inconclusive endings of several Chaucerian narratives and argues that CkT is complete as it is, developing the theme of herbergage (taking in lodgers) that runs throughout Part 1 of CT.

Takada complicates traditional notions of "courtly love" by adducing Continental examples of marital love and English examples of extramarital sex outside of nonfabliau settings, focusing on the two motifs of the brooch and the girdle. Argues that…

Yeager finds a partisan second level of meaning underneath the sycophantic surface of the envoy of Purse - one that challenges Henry's right to rule.

Yeager reads Purse as a political poem rather than a begging poem, addressed initially to Richard. When Chaucer added the envoy, he was under duress from the court of Henry, not financial distress. The poem undermines Lancastrian legitimacy and if…

In ClT, Chaucer expands notions of female power, helping to shape an idea of womanliness, especially as manifested in submissiveness, production of heirs, and self-sacrifice. Williams analyzes the linguistic and cultural category of "womanhood" in…

Surveys recent criticism of ClT, focusing on Griselda as allegory, as "a figure of divinity," and as a flat figure. Concludes that Griselda may simply be read as a real person.

Filios compares the folktale of Griselda with four medieval versions, exploring their adaptations. Boccaccio's tale is eroticized, with the teller Dioneo disagreeing with the conventional happy ending that reinforces dangerous power relations;…

ClT is, in some ways, more like Boccaccio's version of the Griselda story than like Petrarch's, and it goes even further than its predecessors in eliciting pity for Griselda and her children.

Hernández Pérez explores kinship models implicit in the cultural "memory" of ClT, especially those that involve Walter's sister and the sending of children to a relative's household. Griselda's class and deference may reflect vestiges of marriage…

In an argument that medieval writers gendered undesirable aspects of pagan beliefs as feminine, Shutters examines Griselda in ClT.

McClellan relates Giorgio Agamben's theory of the ambiguity of political sovereignty and his ideas on "gesture" and "shame" to Walter's sovereignty and Griselda's submission in ClT. Argues that these are key to understanding the Tale: "The paradoxes…

Considers ClT in light of historical context, particularly the events of Richard II's marriage to Isabel of France.

Mitchell examines the polyvalent meanings of ClT and reflects on the processes of moral deliberation and the polarities that possible meanings represent. The Tale invites us to think hard about the nature of moral thinking.

Ganze discusses concepts and manifestations of "trouthe" in MLT, ClT, and FranT.

Although Chaucer is often considered a poet of love or of philosophy, an examination of the philosophical facets of CT--especially practical reason, individual agency, and autonomy--illuminates the ideologies of sex, gender, and love within his…

Two intertwined debates underlie CT: 1) a tension between traditional literature and individualizing contemporary details, and 2) the realist/nominalist debate over universals.

CT reflects the medieval philosophical debate over universals, posing traditional literature in tension with more fully actualised characterization.

Three features characterize the collections of tales of Don Juan Manuel, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, especially as they relate to cultural context: marks of realism or authentication, thematic concern with unity and diversity, and the presence of the…

The stereotypes depicted in Cecilia, the Wife of Bath, and Griselda reflect the continuing conflict between women who want to escape submissive roles and those who accommodate abusive relationships. Cornelius encourages classroom discussion of SNT,…

Considers citations of Paul's epistles to Timothy in WBPT, PardPT, and ParsPT, reading them in light of late fourteenth-century concern with preaching and pastoral care--Lollard and anti-Lollard, mendicant and antimendicant. Chaucer was concerned…