Browse Items (16376 total)

Hypothesizes that Mel, told by the Man of Law, was once the first tale in the Canterbury sequence, later replaced by MLT; KnT was placed first only in a third stage of revision. ParsP indicates Chaucer's initial plan: one tale per teller. He…

Explores the relation between language and psychology, arguing that Chaucer's increasing use of French loan-words throughout his poetic career reflects a growth in conceptual richness, a microcosm of the growth of English, culturally and…

The occasions, imagery, and verbal play of the lyrical interludes in TC clarify Criseyde's role as a Christian archetype, one who leads Troilus from self-absorption to transcendence but who nevertheless remains ambiguous in her own silence and her…

Challenges the claim that Chaucer is sympathetic to women, demonstrating that he silences Emelye's literary past in KnT and seeks to contain feminine gender through adjustments of Boccaccio's Teseida; the tension between order and chaos in KnT…

Riches of tone and ambiguities encourage us to read Chaucer's poetry silently. Oral performances can illuminate and entertain, but they limit perception of range and depth of meaning. Gaylord examines unpunctuated portions of the Prioress's sketch,…

Compares MLP to its source in Innocent III's "De miseria condicionis humane" and to "Purse" to argue that MLP was originally written for Chaucer to read before a group of merchants to ask for payment.

Addresses medieval writers' uses of saints' lives in Middle English romances of persecuted laywomen. "Le Bone Florence of Rome," "The King of Tars," "Emare," and MLT exemplify the influence of, and variations from, early pious romances. The…

Surveys critical commentary on Chaucer's prosody, noting its subordination to commentary on his narrative art.

Compares the description of Virginia in PhyT with Wycliffite or Lollard materials to argue that Virginia is cast as a perfect image rather than a false one--a reflection of contemporary concern with images, their uses, and their abuses.

Six brief essays from a graduate seminar explore how select medieval plays of the Flood, Nativity, Annunication and Slaughter of the Innocents and Jean Bodel's "Le jeu de Saint Nicholas" illuminate Chaucer's characters in MilT.

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…

Examines details of verse and style in TC 3.1744-71 for the ways they reflect the sources of the passage: Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," Jean de Meun's "Li Livres de Confort," and Bo. The examination seeks to understand Chaucer's attempt…

Shows how modern punctuation obscures subtleties of Chaucer's poetry, drawing examples from CT. Unpunctuated, Chaucer's verse has a rich poetic syntax, especially in the ways it compels readers to posit one meaning, adjust that meaning to a second…

Examines details of the GP sketch of the Prioress and the sensibility of PrT for the ways they clash, exploring their details in light of medieval convent learning and practice. The Prioress may have learned her courtliness as a devotee of Queen Anne…

Defines TC as a novel because it partakes heavily of the linguistic qualities that Bakhtin associates with novelization, including contemporaneity, fusion of genres, and open-endedness. Most important, TC is dialogic in its adaptations of…

Explores Chaucer's meanings for "translation" and related terms, using them to examine Chaucer's use of source material. Conjointure, verbal play, etymologizing, and transfer of meaning typify Chaucerian translation, exemplified in Troilus's…

A Bakhtinian approach to the juxtaposition of PhyT and PardT. In its aloof style and its paralleling of Apius and Virginius, PhyT is marked by a "tendency to monologue." PardT is dialogic in its comic replacement of justice with mercy.

SumP and various puns in SumT not only transform Friar John into a fart but also indicate that his prayers invert the Pentecostal wind and "suggest that his brethern share his odious nature."

ClT is neither an affirmation of traditional hierarchies nor a critique of them, but rather an exploration of the ways individuals interact with social, marital, and spiritual authority. Michel de Certeau's notions of "intextuation" and…

A feminist reading of MerT as a diptych in which sympathy for May as the victim of marital rape is replaced by response to her as a fabliau shrew. May's reading and disposal of Damyan's letter are a "fissure" that marks her transformation and…

Reads "thus seyde here and howne" (TC 4.210) as "everyone agreed," a reading supported by reference to Henry Knighton's "Chronicle," in which Howne's army ("Hownher") may have connoted wide consensus in popular tradition.

Briefly discusses some of the critical responses to Chaucer's alleged raptus of Cecilia Champaigne (Cecily Champain) and how this incident may have influenced certain works, particularly TC, PF, and HF.

Views SNT as a "generic experiment" built "upon an epistemological premise whose axiomatic status was crumbling." Discusses analogical, hermeneutical, and hagiographic elements of the "Tale" as well.

Attempts to "rehabilitate the status and reputation of lines 1.890-96," which some authorities have viewed as an insertion that breaks the continuity of Pandarus's encomiums for Criseyde. Starting from the supposition that these lines were composed…

Treats "Thebes" and the Prologue to "Beryn" (here called "The Canterbury Interlude") as "efforts to write what Chaucer had left unwritten" and to confront contemporary controversies. Lydgate's work rebukes those who would critique monasticism and…