Browse Items (16470 total)

Prints handwritten summaries from a copy of the 1550 edition of Chaucer's works (Cambridge University Library Peterborough B.6.13) and discusses their usefulness for a history of the literary argument, documenting one reader's response to CT and…

Late-medieval preoccupation with mortality defies the solace of fiction. PhyT and PardT offer no hope of physical or spiritual life, and ParsT kills storytelling.

Suggests that the mechanical aspects of the Trojan Horse in Lydgate's poem were influenced by the steed of brass in SqT.

In response to Gower's words to Chaucer at the end of "Confessio Amantis" (8.2941-57), Chaucer first revised LGWP and then completely restructured the plan for CT (e.g., taking Mel away from the Man of Law and giving him a "Gower" tale instead).

Subjectivity and a sense of the importance of the inner self and the individual developed gradually from the early Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. Nothing is altogether new in the stunning early-modernist sense of a vast, inner world of the…

Machan studies the "social meanings, functions, and status of the English language in the late-medieval period," i.e., its "sociolinguistic contextualization." He explores Henry III's letters of 1258; the relationships between language, dialects, and…

The romance "The Siege of Thebes" being read by Criseyde at the beginning of the poem prepares us for her preoccupation with "siege" throughout the work. Pandarus persuades her to conceptualize Troilus as an antidote for the siege's danger, while…

TC exhibits a notable conflict between gift and not-gift economics--between ideal giving and practical commodity exchange. The rules of courtly love, ostensibly designed to ennoble the lover and enable "true" love, in practice disallow unconditional…

Using Hayashi's Quantification Method Type III (a multivariate analysis), Matsuo describes distinctive features of several linguistic structures and clarifies clusters of similarities and dissimilarities. Cites examples from poetry by Chaucer and…

In her "active suffering," Criseyde reflects a Boethian notion of agency. In her prudential counseling of Troilus, she properly dissuades him from "treasonable elopement in time of war." The article explores how Criseyde's advice to Troilus and her…

Chancery highlighted problems posed in the medieval common law courts by failures in jurisprudence. MLT raises questions about injustice that reflect critically on the Sergeant of Law. Though he is shown to be an expert in jurisprudence, he is…

Because they were not subject to fathers or husbands, widows posed a challenge to dominant views of women in late fourteenth-century England. Chaucer's Wife of Bath is portrayed as lecherous, yet she may also embody broader concerns about widowhood.

Mentions MLT, PrT, and ClT in the larger context of gender and blood in medieval culture. McCracken argues that gendered cultural values are "mapped onto blood and that cultural values are inscribed into a natural order." Compares Chaucer's MLT with…

In light of Cicero's "De amicitia," the noble friendship between Troilus and Pandarus helps to elevate TC to a great tragedy.

ManT and the depiction of the Manciple reflect Chaucer's effort to undermine bourgeois threats to court culture, his critique of practical "wit," and, simultaneously, his affirmation of the destructive power of adultery.

Introduces students to Chaucer's life (opening chapter), comments on critical approaches to Chaucer, and presents several groups of recurring topics in CT: gender, religion, race, and class; love, sex, and marriage; God and spirituality; adaptations…

Revised version of "The Second Nun's Tale," first published in C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: Brewer, 1990).

Holliday considers Eric Gill's wood-engraving illustrations to The Canterbury Tales (4 vols., Golden Cockerel Press, 1929-31) in light of Gill's collaboration with Robert Gibbings (owner of the press), the legacy of Edward Johnston (Gill's teacher of…

Honegger argues that analyses of international forms of address would gain depth if critics considered "situational" factors and even "competing interactional" factors along with traditional considerations of ye/thou pronouns. Focuses on addresses to…

In RvT 3944 and FrT 1614, "panne" can be read as the plural of penny instead of pan or dish. In early fourteenth-century Type II London dialect, "panne" is a common variant of "peni." In this light, Chaucer's authorship of fragments B and C of Rom…

Horobin explores how linguistic issues affect questions of attribution, reception, and manuscript authority, focusing not only on lexicon but also on orthography, phonology, and grammar. The language of the Hengwrt manuscript of CT (perhaps produced…

Hughes reads CT as an allegorical political critique of the reign of Richard II. The GP descriptions allegorically represent aspects of Richard's personality or persons in his court. Each of the individual tales comments on specific political events…

Jager draws upon commentary by Jacques Le Goff and Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum regarding how time was measured in the late Middle Ages. He argues that ShT indicates how merchant time, space, and values triumph over those of the Church, because of an…

Applies "register-theory" to PardPT to demonstrate Chaucer's "Gothic" juxtapositioning of various kinds of discourse. Jeffrey examines the mode, domain, topic, and tenor of the discursive units in PardPT and suggests that the characteristic variety…

Jenkins surveys scriptural, Latin patristic, Anglo-Saxon, and late-medieval English representations and appropriations of mysticism, arguing that "medieval indeterminacy" is in many ways epistemologically and theologically grounded in mysticism.…