'Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare': General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, I 191
As used to describe the Monk in GP, the term pricking should not be understood in a sexual sense; review of sources, the OED, and the MED indicates that the term means "hard galloping."
'Of Your Herte Up Casteth the Visage': Turning Troilo/Troilus's Eyes to God
Although he derives it from Boccaccio, Chaucer alters the topos of the lover's gaze at the end of TC, transforming it into a Boethian, Christian vision of God. The article includes a coda on Criseyde's prudential "third eye."
Explores the "deep structure" of nostalgia in Chaucer's works. New/old and young/old oppositions indicate that BD and TC reflect Chaucer's desire for lost courtliness, while CT--especially WBP, WBT, PardP, and PardT--suggests his wish to accomodate a brave new world.
'Olde Stories' and Amazons: The Legend of Good Women, the 'Knight's Tale,' and Fourteenth-Century Political Culture
The "Amazonian" associations - legendary and figurative - of the women in LGW and KnT align the two narratives and suggest that the passive or intercessory roles of royal women in Chaucer's society entailed the "absent presence" of threat to that society.
'Once more unto the breach': The Meaning of 'Troilus and Criseyde'
Interprets TC as a work in which "Courtly Love and Fortune" operate as "complementary powers," two forms of determinism, social and cosmic respectively, inflected in equal part by the characters or personalities of the three central figures.
Alison's threat trades on the story of the Woman Taken in Adultery (John 8), on classifications of adultery associated in ParsT with stoning, and on a liturgical setting in Lauds.
'Other Smale Ymaad Before': Chaucer as Historiographer in the Legend of Good Women
Each of the legends makes use of "the metonymic possibilities of objects and bodies" to represent the difficulty of discerning truth from fable in written sources available to the historiographer.
'Our owen wo to drynke': Loss, Gender, and Chivalry in Troilus and Criseyde
Examines the roles of loss and violence in the construction of feminine figures in chivalric literature, considering such constructions in light of fourteenth-century social history. In TC, Chaucer considers the relation between heroism and suffering and explores how and why Criseyde has been shaped by her world to consent to violence without recourse to ennobling complaint.
'Oure Citee': Illegality and Criminality in Fourteenth-Century London
Close reading of CkT, of descriptions of Roger the Cook in CT, and of relevant late fourteenth-century laws and statutes reveals that Chaucer's powers of observation extend to the lower levels of society and the workings of London's "underworld."
'Oure Fadres Olde and Modres' : Gender, Heresy, and Hoccleve's Literary Politics
In his "Regement of Princes" and "Address to Oldcastle," Hoccleve seeks to assert a revival of chivalry as a means of recovering from the degeneracy of the reign of Henry IV. In doing so, he champions "father" Chaucer's orthodoxy and presents Chaucerian reading "as a kind of chivalric practice that directly counters the feminine Lollard program of translation and interpretation" (p. 278)
'Oure Flessh Thou Yaf Us': 'Langour' and Chaucer's Consumption of Dante in the 'Hugelyn'
Explicates the Ugolino episode of MkT as an instance of Chaucer's self-consciousness about borrowing from sources, especially Dante. Explores the courtly, Boethian, Boccaccian, and Dantean nuances of "langour" and argues that, as Ugolino passively suffers his role as a cannibal in hell, so Chaucer presents the poet who borrows from others.
'Oure Occian': Littoral Language and the Constance Narratives of Chaucer and Boccaccio
Hsy compares the ways MLT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 5.2 present transnational diversity, especially through their depictions of "littoral language," i.e., Custance's and Gostanza's communications with people on the shores of foreign lands. Both works indicate the "provisionality of medieval conceptions of linguistic and cultural identity." Hsy comments on uses of the word "oure" in MLT.
'Ovidio medieval': Los mitos Ovidianos en las obras de Geoffrey Chaucer y John Gower
Surveys Ovid's influence on medieval literature and assesses Chaucer's use of Ovidian myths.
'Pacience in Adversitee': Chaucer's Presentation of Marriage
Marriage has important positive values in medieval narrative, including Chaucer's. The "Marriage Group" constitutes not so much a debate over sexual dominance in marriage as a varied demonstration of the need for mutual consideration and forgiveness, and a condemnation of force, selfishness, and illicit sexuality: it is generally a man who has most to learn and/or to gain through forbearance or reconciliation. These views are also clear in TC, ManT, and Mel.
'Pandras' in Deschamps' Ballade for Chaucer
Despite old objections concerning the date of Deschamps ballade to Chaucer and the Frenchman's rudimentary knowledge of English, it is likely that in his use of "pandras" Deschamps was alluding to Chaucer's TC. This shows that, during his own lifetime, knowledge of Chaucer's masterpiece had spread to France.
'Paradoxicum Semiotica': Signs, Comedy, and Mystery in Fragment VI of the 'Canterbury Tales'
Chaucer's comedy is a "function of the inherent paradoxes of language, particularly as articulated by Freud," and the humor of CT depends on the audience's awareness of the slippage between truth and language. The paired opposition of PhyT and PardT caricatures the respective extremes of realism and nominalism, affirming a moderate conceptualism.
'Paradys or Helle': Pleasure and Procreation in Chaucer's 'Merchant's Tale'
The traditional Galenic idea that conception requires female orgasm indicates that May is not pregnant by January. However, implicit and symbolic references to seed and fruit suggest that Damian has impregnated her.
'Parfit Glorious Pilgrimage': Canterbury '90
Surveys modern Canterbury, the commercial use of Chaucer's name, and the actual connections of the city with Chaucer issues.
'Parfit Praktisour' or Quack? : Chaucer's Physician and the Literary Image of Doctors After the Black Death
Argues that critical interpretations of Chaucer's Physician as a quack have been based on the moral outrage and stock literary character of a later age.
'Parfite Blisses Two': January's Dilemma and the Themes of Temptation and Doublemindedness in the 'Merchant's Tale'
The character of January is indebted to the doctrine of "doublemindedness" promulgated in the Epistle of James, especially as interpreted by Bede. The tale demonstrates the inner temptation undergone by those who waver between charity and cupidity; Justinus and Placebo are "allegorical representations of the inner division of January's mind."
'Parler proprement' : Words, Deeds, and Proper Speech in the Rose
Explores Jean de Meun's treatment of vulgar talk in "Roman de la Rose" (lines 15,129-272) within the context of late-medieval theories of signification. In various passages of CT, Chaucer also confronts direct language and low subject in literature. With Jean de Meun as his predecessor, Chaucer placed vulgarity at the center rather than in the margins, thereby calling into question value judgments.
Report on the First International Congress of the New Chaucer Society.
'Parlous Play': Diabolic Comedy in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'
Hanning examines the allusions to demons and devils in CT and compares them with the devil figure in late-medieval English religious drama. In both contexts, the devil is a tricker of humans who is tricked by God; a "spirit of inversion" who seeks to distort the "salvific Truth-telling function of the Word of God."
'Pars Secunda' and the Development of the 'Canon's Yeoman's Tale'
The argument by John M. Manly (1926) that "Pars Secunda" of CYT was not originally part of CTY at all but was an earlier tale intended for a separate occasion and a special audience is plausible in view of internal, textual, and historical evidence.
'Partriches Wynges': A Note on 'Hous of Fame,' 1391-92
The "partridge wings" at the end of the "pictura" of Fame result not from error but from Chaucer's following the commentary on the "Metamorphoses" in "Ovide moralise," where Perdix (partridge) represents a clever but deceitful craftsman and Daedalus the type of the wise man. "Partriches wynges" is a precise iconographic gesture, implying the emptiness of Fame and the verbal arts.