Browse Items (16376 total)

The various works of the five scribes of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. R.3.2, a Gower collection, suggest that the London book trade before the advent of printing relied on special orders rather than mass production. Scribes B and D produced the…

Though it has been universally assumed that de Worde's CT of 1498 merely followed the text of Caxton's second edition (c. 1484), recent work for the "Variorum" reveals important differences between the two. Instead, de Worde seems to have used an…

Though only three of the twenty-four poems attributed to the poet in John Stowe's "Chaucer" of 1561 are now accepted as genuine, comparative study of the mss used reveals remarkable substantive accuracy in the text of this early edition.

The finest ms of the greatest medieval English literary work, the Ellesmere, produced about 1410 in a commercial scriptorium, with twenty-three marginal portraits (all reproduced here), was the jewel of the great Bridgewater library assembled by Sir…

After William Caxton's 1485 edition of CT, Richard Pynson's is the earliest (c. 1492). Pynson's printing practice and his role within the historical scope of English printing provide backgrounds for analysis between the two texts of major variants…

Variations in spelling of words for "yes" and "no" are systemic in the literate language of Chaucer in that they distinguish the meanings of "no" and "nay," "yes" and "yea." As such, they are manifestations of visible language. Variant spellings of…

In discussing the standard alliterative line in medieval English poetry, notes Chaucer's attitude toward alliteration in ParsP and, focussing on TC, shows the diminishing role of alliteration in Chaucer. Alliterative patterns and phrases provide…

An analysis of reflexive verbs in Chaucer within the case grammar framework. It shows the possibility of the semantic motivation of the reflexive pronoun and of a finer distinction of reflexivity in terms of the semantic relationship among the verb,…

In Mel Chaucer's idiomatic translation from the French of Renaud de Louens skillfully imitates and elaborates the "style clergial," especially in its use of introductory phrases, doublets, subordinate clauses, and trailing sentence structures.

Virtually all aspects of Chaucer's English need further work. Some of these are the poet's idiolect, word-formation, syntax and its adjustment to oral presentation, learned and "lewed" words, social dialect, and polysemy and synonymy. Much…

The tautologies of the "Roman de la Rose," formally co-ordinate and semantically emphatic, Chaucer usually renders by conservation, grammatical transcategorization, amplification, or emphasized reduction.

In his apprentice years as a poet Chaucer must have spoken and written in French, the language of the court; hence he was commissioned to write BD on the reputation of this (now lost) French poetry. Possibly the memorial was written in English for a…

The proverb "to be as glad of something as 'fowel of day'," or variant, is used in KnT, CYT, TC, and ShT. The character associated with the fowl is deceived by appearances or by another character. In ShT Don John represents the fowler interpreted…

Standard modern studies of courtly love do not refer to a term used in French poetry, "blanche fever." A study of this sickness endured by the lovers in TC, "Confessio Amantis," "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," and Caxton's "History of Jason"…

Chaucer freely coins derivations, such as the Summoner's "preambulacion" from "preamble" (D837), for the sake of rhyme, rhythm, economy, and forcefulness.

Computer studies of Chaucer's vocabulary can teach the modern philologist much about Chaucer's "logosphere" that earlier concordances or historical dictionaries could never do. Such proposed computerized projects would include the comparative…

Morris Halle and Samuel J. Keyser, through careful computer analysis, seem to have put down the myth of the hundred-year-hibernation of Chaucer's decasyllabic line. By studying the stresses and their positions in the line, Halle and Keyser have…

Chaucer stands firmly in the tradition of "Phaedrus" and "Timaeus" by virtue of the "imagistic" and figural view of reality he presents in CT. References to Boethius' "Consolation of Philosophy" further emphasize the Platonic approach to rhetoric. …

The influence of Italian poets on Chaucer is but one of many illustrations that the Italian Renaissance had reached fourteenth-century England. But a prevailing conservatism prevented the Renaissance from flourishing in fourteenth- and…

As a nominalist, Ockham is aware of the limitation of human perception and the weakness of language to convey ideas without distortion. In a different way, Chaucer, too, is concerned with these problems, though as a poet he tends to emphasize (not…

The movement of "Gatsby" was compared to that of TC by Nancy Hoffman in 1971. However, the differences are as significant as the similarities. Fitzgerald's story reflects different preoccupations, a different age. Chaucer created something poised…

By means of vocabulary items, characteristics of Chaucerian English as found in the "Kingis Quair" are noted in passing.

Discussion of the literary background of Douglas's poem takes account of Chaucer's references to music, especially in HF and PF.

Whereas Henryson's tale focuses on flattery and pride, and with the relationship of these sins to language, Chaucer's NPT--a likely source for Henryson--emphasizes the rhetoric of heroic poetry and the question of women's opinions. These different…

Dunbar's so-called autobiographical references are comparable to Chaucer's references to himself in his poetry. Also Dunbar's references employ conventions that may be found in Chaucer.