Browse Items (16472 total)

In Gower's version of the Constance story, incest is a metaphor for the relationship between the Church and the crown, a means to critique the two. In contrast, MLT "tries to avoid suggesting any tension between lay and clerical power."

The "Britoun book, written with Evaungiles," on which Constance's false accuser swears before being struck dead, is likely to have been a Latin gospel book illuminated in Celtic. Such a book (like the Gospel of Gildas) was said to have the power…

At the crux of chronicle and romance, Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia" provides much of the basis for later literature. The work emphasizes women not only as child bearers but also as speakers who could uphold or deny legitimacy. Barefield discusses…

Explores medieval theories of narrative closure in Matthew of Vendome, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Brunetto Latini, and John of Garland to argue that if "inconclusiveness" is a thematic goal, the end of a work is the "natural place to accent it." As an…

Connects the violence implicit in the performance of the Tale with physical violence and argues that RvT portrays the perversion of masculine power.

RvP is a psychological study of the bitterness and frustrations of old age, as well as a quiting of the Miller. Chaucer borrowed the leek-old age simile from Boccaccio's Decameron and adapted it to his own purpose. The simile is not proverbial.

Reads MilT as a dim, worldly "eschatological drama" in which providential order is turned to disorder and "spiritual grace to secular disgrace." Analyzes various words and details ("ba," "stone," the ring, etc.), the concern with Noah's Flood, and…

The blacksmith is an ambiguous figure. Medieval blacksmiths often worked at night because the temperature was cooler, but ordinances forbade them to do so. Furthermore, although the medieval blacksmith was a symbol of the devil, he was also a symbol…

Textbook edition of the Miller's sketch from GP, MilPT, and RvP, including glosses and discursive notes, and a discussion of "approaches" to the works--sources and analogues, character analysis, assessment of theme and topic, and analysis of poetic…

Violence, induced by the impermissible crossing of borders, involves clashing social codes and evokes varying attitudes: Beowulf authorizes it; Juliana opposes it; "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and MilT develop its ambiguities. Sir Gawain poses a…

In MilT, Chaucer transformed a bawdy joke into pleasing narrative art, producing in the sexual scenes moments when a reader might feel jouissance. Includes some notes toward a materialist reading of the Tale as a representation of the poetic and…

John, Nicholas, and Absolon are, each in his own way, feminized in MilT, while Alison is masculinized and thereby escapes punishment.

As the Miller refuses to allow easy closure to KnT, so the Tale's opening is rooted in the uneasy conquest of Femenye. Throughout the Tale, patterns that suggest resolution fail to reach their hoped-for conclusion, indicating the ongoing nature of…

KnT reveals a providential pattern that is both Boethian and Pauline--"all things work together for the good." The gods of the Tale are pagan, but the outcome of the story shows Christian Providence.

In KnT, Chaucer's use of the word "queynte," the dying and quickening fires in the temple, and the spurting and spewing of the flames to "suggest parturition, life's uncertainty and tenuousness and even menstruation." Emelye's tears at the sight of…

Examines masculine suffering and Theseus's stoic masculinity, particularly how it demands the suffering of the ruler's soldiers and the sorrowing of women. Concludes that the Tale depicts Theseus's creative power as specifically masculine.

A close reading of passages in KnT reveals Chaucer's close familiarity with the medieval construction industry. Although Chaucer supervised building rather than creating buildings, as a poet, he is supreme master over his own creative process.

In KnT, Chaucer questions force as a basis for government. Conquest "dissolves voluntary social bonds" and fails to produce the consent necessary to a good society. An agent of force, Theseus uses rhetoric to control others, and his final speech is…

Reads KnT as an expression of Chaucer's own outlooks, i.e., his sympathetic views of chivalry and ritual.

If the Parson represents the Church, the Ploughman represents lay piety in brotherhood with the Church. This is how Chaucer perceives the poet's role: as a "'trewe swynkere,' working 'for Cristes sake, for every povre wight' in accordance with the…

The portrait of the five guildsmen in CT is a critique of "petty bourgeois pretensions to political power." Though each was "shaply for to been an alderman," the guildsmen were not members of the professions from which aldermen were elected. Their…

With the exception of Dorigen, the women in the Marriage Group (WBPT, ClT, MerT, FranT) are similar to Boethius's character Philosophy: they assume authoritative roles, echo some of her sentiments, and sometimes recall her voice. Dorigen's behavior…

Assesses the status of CT and three eighteenth-century novels as "transitional texts" between orality and literacy, examining such features as voicing, framing devices, and insecurity about the social and moral roles of the texts.

Though Chaucer grants women agency in CT, they act against a background of violence that is often ignored or mitigated. The fabliaux, the romances, and the religious narratives all present violence against women as a normal part of society. WBT comes…

Legal terminology pertaining to land law is dense in fragments 1 and 2 of CT and in TC. Chaucer used the terms in informed ways and expected his audience to be familiar with their implications.