Browse Items (16470 total)

Nakao assesses the use of "as she that" as it is applied to Criseyde, identifying the unusually high frequency of the phrase in TC, its various functions and semantic range, and the way that Chaucer exploits this variety "to hold in balance his…

Differences between eschatological and historical time in TC pose parallel differences between Troilus's personal Boethian tragedy and the epic tragedy of the fall of Troy. Similarities between Criseyde and analogous women in other siege stories (in…

Although not lovers, Troilus and Pandarus express deep affection for each other, and Pandarus gains Troilus's dependence. In addition, Pandarus's speeches, silences, and gaze (staging sexual scenes for his pleasure), as well as more fluid medieval…

Compares Criseyde of TC with her analogues in Henryson's "Testament," Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," and Dryden's "Truth Found Too Late," arguing that in Chaucer's and Shakespeare's versions she is a victim of predatory males and is left open…

Originally published in English Literature (Waseda University) 70 (1994). Ambiguities of speech and thought in TC, particularly Criseyde's, are more likely functions of narrative strategy than reflections of individuated consciousness or…

Smith assesses characterizations of Criseyde, focusing on Chaucer's, Henryson's, and Shakespeare's characterizations but commenting on others. She argues that the character must be understood in light of contemporaneous attitudes toward, for example,…

Surveys attitudes toward patriotism among early English writers. According to Stanley, Criseyde's claim to Diomedes that she loves the city of Troy (TC 5. 953-57) is untrue.

Stokes compares the pledges of love-troth in the "Prose Lancelot" and TC, suggesting that they reflect a "specific kind of romantic relationship," neither marital nor illicit nor clandestine, but "solemn and binding" and based on the man's service to…

The tension between sensual love and orthodox truth in TC can be seen in nascent form in Boccaccio's "Filocolo," even though Chaucer depends for his plot on "Filostrato." The tension is rooted in Dante's "Comedy" and in the "Roman de la Rose," but…

Notes possible allusions to Marie de France's "Chevrefoil" and "Laùstic" in TC.

In TC, Chaucer's "greater vehemence," his increase in specificity, and his heightening of emotion characterize his adaptations of Boccaccio's "Filostrato."

Examines TC 4.958-1078, comparing the context of these lines with that of their source in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. The Christian import of the poem's closing lines is implicit in TC 4.

Rather than personal comments to private friends, Buk and Scog may be seen as Chaucer's experiments with "[t]urning the relationship between writer and reader into a poetic subject of its own." The characteristic sense of play and seemingly…

A major source of Keats's poem is the Middle English "La Belle Dame sans Mercy," mistakenly attributed to Chaucer in the 1782 edition of "The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer," which Keats owned.

Uses Form Age and Fragment 8 of CT as part of a larger exploration of medieval attitudes toward work.

Examines the related topoi of the man in foul clothing and the wedding guest with no robe as they are depicted in "Cleanness," "St. Erkenwald," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Julian of Norwich's "The Showings," and CYPT, arguing that the texts confront…

Although the link between ManT and ParsT has been seen as tenuous, ManT leads symbolically and actually into ParsT, and it simultaneously extends the piety of ParsT back into CT as a whole.

Surveys the "traditions of preaching theory that Chaucer drew on in creating his Parson and Pardoner," focusing on the preacher's paradoxical "persona," the relationship between the "person" and the "office," and the use of the physical body in the…

Explores how Chaucer's prologue to Astr engaged "new models of English translation" from the 1380s, including Wycliffite translations. Traditionally, critics have focused on Chaucer's continental models of translation.

Assesses Astr as a piece of technical writing, admiring Chaucer's use of a personal voice, everyday examples, devices of cohesion, and other indications of audience awareness.

Osborn repunctuates the "astrolabic" passages in SqT and MLP (both set in the East) and considers the operation of an astrolabe to resolve apparent problems of time and date. The steed of brass and its association with the star Alpherez in SqT…

Originally published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Language Teaching (Waseda University) 51 (1996). Challenges M. A. K. Halliday's 1988 description of the prose style of Astr, focusing on the use of second-person pronouns and calling for…

Originally published in the Journal of Liberal Arts (Waseda University) 100 (1996), the article surveys criticism of Chaucer's prose style in Bo. Shimonomoto calls for more appropriate discourse analysis, examining two passages in which Chaucer uses…

Chaucer uses the conventions of Machaut in BD to undermine them, demonstrating to his English readers that the French poetic tradition was two-dimensional, "narrow in scope and appeal, read primarily for diversion and reflection."

Suggests that Froissart's Dit dou bleu chevalier is "a poem so like" BD that it "seems certain one is modeled upon the other" (45).