Browse Items (16471 total)

Connects Chaucer's views in Astr with a scientific and philosophic tradition of the "Physis" that started in ancient Greece.

Surveys scholarship pertaining to ParsT, describing the recent emphasis on interpretation rather than on philology. Identifies a "perspectivist" approach that regards ParsT as equivalent to the other Tales and a "teleological" approach that sees it…

Based on two Latin penitential manuals, ParT is shaped to conclude CT with both additions and deletions. Less strictly hierarchical than its major sources, the Tale emphasizes the individual's relationship to God and human society.

ParsT is an examination of conscience that prepares for the act of confession that is Chaucer's Ret. Late-medieval notions of self differ from modern ones; the process of preparing for confession led the penitent to recognize and discard the sinful…

Nine essays and an annotated bibliography that focus on ParsT. Includes an introduction by the editors and a comprehensive index. For individual essays, search for Closure in The Canterbury Tales under Alternative Title.

ParsT confronts and resolves the dual focus evident throughout CT: the intricate variety of human error and the radical simplicity of penance. Echoing GP--and recalling the theology of spiritual progress reflected in FrT, PardT, ClT, and Mel--ParsT…

When read "astrolabically" rather than astrologically, the "chronographia" of ParsP is accurate and ripe with spiritual meaning. It was inspired by Dante's presentation of the stars in the "Divine Comedy" and indicates the imminence of Easter.…

Assesses ParsT in its genre of vernacular penitential manual, demonstrating that in structure and detail it is closely affiliated with Heinrich von Langenstein's "Erchantnuzz der Sund." Similarities between these two contemporary works raise…

Examines the pageant of sins in the first book of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene as a reflection of one stage in the development from the Pauline "theological" notion of sin to a "material-psychological" understanding. Compares Spenser's depiction…

Analyzes uses of "glose," "lewed," "estat," and "fre" to clarify the relation of the Parson and ParsT to Lollardy. Lollard diction is more prevalent in the GP description of the Parson and in ParsP than in ParsT, perhaps neutralizing the…

As a reckoning or quantification of sin, ParsT rationalizes the "complexities of the human will." By making human options clear, it can serve as either a beginning or an end.

ParsT ends CT but does not bring transcendent closure to the work. In various ways--including several verb forms and other variations from Pennaforte's "Summa"--ParsPT reaffirm temporality rather than asserting eternality; they focus attention not on…

Argues that ParsT fits its teller. Seen in relation to its sources, the Tale reflects a particular and individualized kind of spirituality--a spirituality averse to physical pleasure, critical of inappropriate taxation, and ambivalent about…

In CYPT, one finds a "rhetorical demystification of alchemy's textual mystification of work and material production" and a commentary on counterfeiting and the impotence of alchemy as a "projection of masculine fears of sexual impotence."

Assesses CYPT as an example of confession and contrasts it with SNT, demonstrating their different kinds of "bisynesse." By placing CYPT near the end of CT, Chaucer invites comparison between alchemy and poetry.

In presenting "werk," "multiplie," and "privitee" as pivotal words and concepts, CYT differs from Jonson's "The Alchemist." Yet both works demonstrate links between material transformation and the early history of capitalism.

Late-medieval versions of CYT 8.1428-81 misread and/or misrepresent the text as an authority on alchemy, a reflection of a pervasive admiration of Chaucer as a man of science. Not until Enlightenment debunking of alchemy did scholars recognize these…

Defines oral performance art as an artistic genre, with written representations of it also manifesting distinctive generic qualities. Ugoretz examines these matters on the basis of contemporary oral performance and analyzes them in relation to five…

Explores issues of intertextuality as they relate to textual variance in manuscript culture, summarizing the medieval versions of Alan's "De planctu." Jean de Meun's and Chaucer's depictions of Nature differ from Alan's, despite the critical impulse…

Political theory from Alain de Lille and Aristotle underlies PF, and events of the Good Parliament (1376) are reflected in it. Chaucer's Priapus and Venus allude to Edward III and Alice Perrers, while Nature's parliament is Chaucer's political ideal…

PF engages the same issues as does Trecento commentary on Dante's Divine Comedy, largely matters of interpretation and meaning. Part of this intertextual tradition, PF participates in and comments on the "comedic" nature of literary history, i.e.,…

Examines how rape narratives explore relationships between literary conventions and the erotic, especially female erotic masochism, homosocial attraction, and the nexus of desire and abject sexuality.

Lives of virgin martyr saints became a majority in the genre, appealing predominantly to a female audience and providing "expressions of devotion rather than exhortations to devotion." Sanok discusses works of Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Christine de…

Manuscript evidence shows that fifteenth-century female readers of LGW were urban and either household servants or daughters of the gentry, whereas the implied female audience of fourteenth-century manuscripts consisted of members of the nobility,…

Differences between the F and G versions of LGWP include increased concern in the latter with aurality, with the metaphor of harvest as an epistemological figure and an "ars poetica," and with the boundaries between orality and literacy, Latin and…