Browse Items (16472 total)

Identifies Chaucer's "cosmological additions" to Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" when translating it as "Boece," identifying the sources of these additions in earlier translations and commentaries, and speculating that Chaucer includes glosses…

Twelve essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors consider the range and depth of impact of Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" on Old and Middle English literature and thought. The introduction summarizes the legacy of the…

Shows that the "sustained concern about women's agency" in National Library of Scotland, MS Advocates 19.2.1 (Auchinleck) "mirrors" Chaucer's similar concern, and that "the complexity with which Chaucer treats that agency can be found in the…

Explores the "creative power of literary tradition" in medieval and contemporary works. Includes a chapter on TC and Boccaccio's "Il filostrato."

Describes the incorporation of works by the English Jewish poet Meir b. Elijah of Norwich into a survey of early English literature, exploring difficulties and achievements. Includes brief comparison of Meir's use of personal acrostics in his poetry…

Describes a pedagogy and practice of reading PrT in light of the historical pogrom in Prague (1387), a Latin narrative of the pogrom ("Passio Judeorum Pragensium"), a Czech-and-Latin fragmentary play entitled "Ungentarius" (Ointment Seller), and…

Describes a classroom practice of encouraging students to explore emotional responses to PrT by asking them to illustrate any scene from the tale and then compare these illustrations with historical illustrations, from the Vernon manuscript to modern…

Applies Freudian-based neighboring theory to PrT, comparing it with several medieval exempla about Jews, and explaining how such comparisons can help students to see the necessity of interpretation in determining affection and prejudice, crime and…

Comprises nineteen pedagogical essays in English, history, philosophy, theater, and Judaic studies by various authors who participated in a series of NEH research seminars conducted between 2003 and 2014. The introduction by the editors addresses…

Assesses Chaucer's "enticing eroticism and provocative perversity" as "clear and vital signs of premodern pornography." Historicizes terms such as "obscene," "pornographic," and "erotic," and proposes "Chauceroticism" to describe the various ways the…

Ponders the complications and implications of discussing rape in modern classroom considerations of WBT, and recommends using the BBC television version of the tale to help raise and confront its inherent questions and values.

Identifies contradictions and complications in legal and ethical understandings of rape, and describes how issues of consent and culpability can be used productively in classroom discussion of RvT to help students understand their own values as well…

Maintains that attention to speech and silence is crucial to literary analysis and to understanding medieval notions of gender difference, exemplifying how the speech/silence binary can be explored in complex ways to help analyze rape as a plot…

Includes thirteen essays by various authors and an introduction by the editor, all focusing on teaching medieval narratives that involve rape, attempted rape, or false accusation while attending to twenty-first-century awareness of rape, sexual…

Explores how philosophers, theologians, poets, and other thinkers in late medieval England altered ancient ideas of geographical space. Analyzes medieval science, theology, literature, and maps, and the "relationship between high science and high…

Considers tragedy from the perspective of analytical philosophy, arguing "that tragic literature seeks to offer moral and linguistic redress (compensation) for suffering'; it "involves the balancing of a protagonist's suffering with guilt (and vice…

Explores the concept of "cooperative" or "conjoint" agency in Chaucer's works to examine ideas "about the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity." Examines the notion of passivity in the works of Chaucer and Bernard of Clairvaux, as well as…

Examines connection between "language and cultural identity" and claims that Chaucer mocks "Alexander's 'storie' as 'commune' "in MkT. Analyzes how Latin, French, and English Alexander narratives were read, and rewritten, in medieval literature…

Questions the assumptions underlying critical commentary on the Wife of Bath's deafness, exploring potential parallels between authority and experience, literacy and orality, and hearing and deafness. Indicts the "audism" of much of the commentary,…

A group of "deaf/Deaf/hard of hearing scholars with wide-ranging expertise in literary studies, rhetoric, disability studies, and Deaf Studies" express "deep reservations" about Robinson's essay.

Draws on modern media studies to clarify practices of "participatory reading" in late medieval England, exploring how vernacular authors, texts, and manuscripts elicit and/or limit the agency of their readers who engage with texts in making meaning,…

Explores "links between gender ideology and money in the late Middle Ages," arguing that Chaucer's "depiction of his purse as a faithless female lover" in Purse reflects the "cultural imaginary around money before the emergence of
political…

Considers relations between PardPT and the Museum of London's carved wooden panel that depicts details of the tale. Calculates the "absurdity of the hoard" in the tale, and explores possible responses of the "London economic elite" to the differing…

Examines relations between theology and economics in FrPT and SumPT (with glances at WBP and PardPT), focusing on the polysemous implications of debt, and suggesting that these tales are "key source texts" for modern "economic theology" (Weber to…

Coins the phrase "liminal transactionalism" to characterize the late medieval combination of gift-exchange and commercial economies, arguing that a similar combination extends forward to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," challenging traditional…