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Drawing on exegetical tradition, Chaucer effectively combines piety and irreverence in his handling of biblical themes and characters. In Mel and MLT he presents Old Testament platitudes and stereotypes as practical moral guides, while in MilT and…

Chaucer's unprecedented use of the woman baring her buttocks to the lover's kiss significantly emphasizes both the active potential of the woman, the rejection of courtly traditions,and the association of food with sex. The addition of her fart…

MilT's heterosexual focus gains comic resonance from its homoerotic underside--clearly present in Absolon's branding of Nicholas and the anal inversion of the oral functions of kissing and speaking. In its emphasis on vindictive sexuality, RvT…

The fabliaux must be studied in terms of inversion--the world upside down--evoking the chaos of Dante's hell. They reflect Pauline and Augustinian dichotomies between the flesh and the spirit, the City of Man and the City of God.

The lines (1.4087 and 4187) in RvT suggest the reading of "god" without the inflectional ending. Tolkien objects on grounds of meter, but we do not know enough about Chaucer's meter to emend on these grounds alone.

The word "soutere" (shoemaker) in CT 1.3904 may possibly be a pun on "Chaucer" (Fr. "chaussier", shoemaker).

The Clerk of Oxford is Jankyn, the Wife of Bath's fifth husband, travelling incognito.

Since the speech acts of Alison consist of arguing, insisting,challenging, and confiding, the message is that she is always struggling against the givens of her world. She is Lady Philosophy "manque" since her views of behavior are hardly proper and…

When the Griselda legend first appears in English literature, in ClT, Griselda is praised for her patience. In subsequent versions, as the centuries pass, her patience loses its moral worth and comes to be equated with unhealthy submissiveness.

Translation, with critical introduction.

The Clerk responds to WBT by showing that "gentilesse" is found in humble virtue and obedience, as well as in noble birth. MerT, however, seeks to deny the underlying premise of these earlier tales by showing that "gentilesse" and happiness can…

The psychological condition of ClT must be understood in terms of fourteenth-century, not twentieth-century, psychology. The relationship between Griselda and Walter can be compared to a man-to-God, child-to-parent, or colonial-to-colonizer…

ClT embodies two levels of meaning, realistic and allegorical. These levels are well represented by the handling of the detail and imagery of Griselda's clothing.

Griselda's career, when seen in light of the nominalist doctrine of justification known in fourteenth-century Oxford, parallels the pilgrimage of the faithful toward the Heavenly Jerusalem.

The tree paradigms in MerT are illuminated by the etymological kinship of "tree" and "true," by the tree's biblical and allegorical implications, and by evocations of the Tree of Jesse and trees of virtues and vices.

May's final answer is the culmination of "an incongruence between words and truth that is manifest throughout the entire poem." The preamble of antifeminist material is glossed by an old man's fantasy. The Merchant's "inability" to gloss allows him…

The botanical-physical sense of May's appraisal of January's sexual "playing" as "nat...worth a bene" (E 1854) indicates that January has not impregnated May. May's expectancy of impregnation by Damian is frustrated when January interrupts…

Ironic references to Solomon, who is typologically identified with Christ, as well as to the "Song of Solomon," makes January something of an anti-Christ figure, just as May is a blasphemous counterpart of Mary, and January's garden a degraded…

The squire in GP wears red and white apparel which critics generally associate with springtime and fashionable dress. Because soon-to-be knights wore these colors in the medieval knighting ritual, this chivalric association of the colors further…

The origin of SqT is traced to Chacuer's experimental period of Anel in 1380. The source of SqT is believed to be an unidentified Oriental tale "Europeanized" by Chaucer.

The contradictions surrounding the Pardoner are an important thematic element in PardT. The trickster figure found in mythology represents a figure that is supposed to embody contradictions. Viewing the Pardoner as such a trickster figure allows…

By studying fourteenth-century numismatics and representations of greed, one finds that the Pardoner's extreme avarice is reflected in his knowledge of coins, his identification with horses, and his sterility.

The recognition of the sexual puns on the words "cosyn" and "cosynage" determines the structure of ShT, as the narrative shifts its balance from relationship to deception.

Characters in ShT use imprecise language such as swearing to obscure the meaning of their actions. The narrator, who uses similar language, and fails to notice the implications of his tale, resembles the pilgrim of uncertain identity in the Endlink…