Browse Items (16470 total)

Considers theoretical, ideological, and practical questions concerning the value and valuation of literature and literary studies, with recurrent attention to contemporary issues in editing, canonicity, interpretation, and institutional status,…

Attributes the lack of critical attention to John Metham's "Amoryus and Cleopes" to its "prosodic eccentricity," demonstrating that it "does not descend from, and does not participate in, the transmission or reception of Chaucer's Anglicized…

Explores free will in Mars, KnT, TC, and CT, focusing on the relative balance of astrological determinism and character complexity. The "compulsions of astrology" in Mars are lessened in KnT, replaced by the "searching" for examples of providence in…

A textbook for religious studies that anthologizes theological, philosophical, and literary essays and excerpts. all concerned with the nature of evil. Includes excerpts from Chaucer's "Patient Griselda" (ClT in David Wright translation, pp.…

While the knight of WBT returns from his quest with the word that saves his life - "sovereynetee" - he never understands its meaning: "independence and self-government." The wedding-night conversation between the knight and the "wyf" demonstrates her…

Reviews studies of Criseyde's character by G. L. Kittredge, George Mizener, and C. S. Lewis, and argues that she is "the finger pointing in accusation against the code of courtly love." She shows us that "we mortals are fools to think that by our…

Analyzes the manuscript variants of the so-called added passages of WBP, concluding that the passages were composed by Chaucer and that they extend from a single exemplar, probably an unfinished authorial draft.

Treats the "relevant historical events, some basic attitudes (of the era), literary stragtagems," and TC itself, which is a "vivid example of the degrading and disastrous consequences" when a noble, valorous man places his seduced private will above…

Given historical events in the age of King Richard II, details of the Knight's portrait in GP would have been irrelevant before 1393 or after 1396. Chaucer may have inserted the Knight's description into GP, altered other details in GP, planned…

Following the example set in V. A. Kolve's Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative, Brown develops the mimetic and iconographic relations of the prison in KnT and the castle in Roman de la Rose.

Introductory study guide to PrPT, WBPT, and the accompanying GP descriptions, focusing on the ambiguity of the Prioress and the "moral incoherence" of the Wife of Bath. Includes questions for discussion but no text of the poetry.

Discusses the Prioress's antisemitism in PrT within the context of late medieval religious feeling, in order to "understand it from within so as more effectively to analyze it." Traces "the condensation of a complex set of antisemitic ideas, wrapped…

Recorded at Campion College, University of Regina (side one), and at the Seventh International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, University of Kent (side two). Re-edited and digitally mastered as a CD-ROM by Troy Sales and Paul Thomas in 2004.

Item not seen; the WorldCat records indicate that this is a reading by Piehler of PrT and Tho in Middle English.

Relying on Hengwrt as the basic text, Boyd--in the manner of all editors in this variorum series--surveys both manuscripts and printed editions, emending in light of both. The introduction provides critical and textual commentaries, the former…

The quotation of Psalm 8 in PrP would have reminded Chaucer's audience of two Gospel narratives of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, one referring to singing children, the other to speaking stones. The power of this combined allusion links the clergeoun…

Reviews arguments that identify and explicate "Seinte Loy" in the GP description of the Prioress (GP 1.120) as a reference to St. Eligius, and suggests an alternative possibility: St. Eulalia. Explores resonances of the reference--thematic and…

Looking beyond the OED's definition of "span"--a length of roughly nine inches--to a range of medieval senses of the word suggests that the width of the Prioress's forehead "offers no meaningful foothold for objecting to her."

Identifies details in the GP description of the Prioress that are inconsistent with the Benedictine Rule and indicate satirically that she is courtly, a "worldly woman dressed in a Prioress's habit."

Describes the associations of coral with apotropaic power in medieval lapidaries, and suggests that the Prioress's rosary of coral in GP (1.158) ambiguously may signal religious intent as well as courtly luxury.

Examines the Prioress's claim that she is unequal to the task of praising Mary as an example of the inexpressibility topos, used recurrently in the Middle Ages to express the ineffable. Comments on several instances of the topos used by theologians…

The Prioress's prayer to Mary shares characteristics with the "genre of prayer known as 'pura oratio'." Spence identifies features of this genre in rhetorical tradition, shows where they are evident in PrP, and suggests that they extend into PrT,…

Clarifies the implications of the Prioress keeping dogs as pets and feeding them meat (GP 1.146ff.), explaining that such behavior bends or breaks at least four "Benedictine strictures"--ones that restrict pet owning (especially dogs) and eating…

Observes that as the patron saint of prisoners St. Leonard was associated iconographically with chains and fetters, and contends that this deepens the irony and ambiguity of the motto on the brooch of the Prioress in GP 1.162, where "vincit" carries…