Browse Items (16376 total)

Traces in biblical, classical, and political sources the development of the idea that the Pope and other rulers gain sovereignty through "mystical marriage" to their respective institutions, arguing that WBT "bears a striking similarity to [this]…

Surveys Chaucer's translations of passages from the Bible, commenting on his Biblical knowledge, his artistry in translating and using scripture, his mediating sources, his possible uses of the Vulgate and Wycliffite versions, and his "attitude" to…

Item not seen; Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Surveys the history of indulgences in Church history as background to Chaucer's character of the Pardoner, commenting on abuses and critiques of the practice recorded in English documents as corroboration of Chaucer's depiction.

Discursive, analytic commentaries on KnT and ClT, treating source relations, styles, themes, rhetorical patternings, and aesthetic success in Chaucer's "full realisation of the human predicament" in both tales. The discussion of KnT emphasizes the…

Readings of PardPT (MacLiammoir) and MilT (Holloway) in Theodore Morrison's modern verse translation. Caedmon also released this recording on cassette tape.

Explores the possibilities of using folklore, ornithological markings, and Chaucer's possible first-hand experiences to offer perspective on several birds and their attributive qualities referred to in PF, and one each in MilT, RvT, and SumT.

Summarizes the principles of "alchemical theory," exploring Jungian associations and emphasizing Christian interpretations in medieval and early modern commentaries. Focusing on imagery of CYP, suggests that the canon is associated with the…

Articulates an allegorical approach to medieval literature (also called patristic, exegetical, Augustinian, historical, or iconographical criticism), clarifying its assumptions and methods and applying them to Chaucer's works and to works that…

Traces the scribal and editorial history of capitalizing (or not) "S/summoner" in FrT 3.1327, advocating the lower case "s" for the way it maintains the ambiguity of reference to the protagonist of FrT and the Friar's pilgrim-opponent.

Discusses the nuances of "sely" as it is applied recurrently to carpenter John in MilT and aids in characterization and comedy.

Suggests that Jerome's "Ad Rusticum Monachum" (125:11) is the ultimate source of the linking of "baskettes" and the apostles in PardP 6.444-47, and aligns the Pardoner with the Wife of Bath through their shared anti-asceticism.

Cites the Wife of Bath's allusion to "Crisippus" (WBP 3.677) to suggest that St. Jerome's "Epistola adversus Jovinianum (1.48) is the source of Pandarus's reference to "natal Joves feste" (TC 3.150) and that the locution is part of Pandarus's…

Characterizes Oswald the Reeve as a guiler beguiled and a "judge who unwittingly judges himself by his own principles," examining aspects of GP (Miller and Reeve), MilPY, and RvPT for the ways that Oswald's retributive assault on Robin lacks…

Edits these two examples of Chaucerian apocrypha, with introduction, textual and critical notes, glossary, and bibliography, observing that the "only reason for the attribution" to Chaucer is "their inclusion in the sixteenth-century collected…

Offers physiognomic evidence that the Summoner's black eyebrows (GP 1.627) and those of Alisoun (MilT 1,3245-46) indicate lecherousness.

Explores comedy and irony in KnT, both extending from the Knight's perspective on Christian chivalric values in a pagan epic setting and his disclosure of the "absurdity of earthly action." Focuses on Theseus's political opportunism and his…

Traces the development of the notion of mutability from decay to progress, with related motifs, and assesses its place in Boethius' "Consolation of Philosophy" and the "De Contemptu Mundi" of Innocent III. Then examines Chaucer's "peculiar…

Treats Friar John's "digression" on anger in SumT as an "instance of mistaken penitential preaching" that is, satirically, aimed at Huberd the Friar. The awkward, inappropriate length of the address is part of the Sommoner's riposte to his adversary…

Glosses "party" in "party white and rede" (KnT 1.1053) as "literally 'parti-colored,'" referring to a single kind of flower, the daisy, citing LGWF 42-43 as evidence.

Argues that the "formal and thematic design" of TC--particularly its five-book structure--reflects the "ordered argument of Lady Philosophy" in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "reveals a new facet of Chaucer's concept of tragedy." Altering…

Comments on the rhetorical shifts, manuscript variants, and editorial choices of PF 1-2 and 12-14, exploring tonal implications.

Examines WBPT for internal contrasts, attributing them to the Wife's comic inability to see the implications of her own tale. WBT is a "tale of wonder" or "folktale" in which the rape is merely a plot device and the education of the knight…

Commends the force and clarity of the passage on old age in RvP (1.3887-98), particularly the images of the wine cask and the tongue, the first familiar to Chaucer as a member of a family in the wine business

Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate that this translation of CT into Finnish is based on the 1908 modernization of Arthur Burrell, with an Introduction to the translation by Tauno Mustanoja. The illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones derive from…