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Elizabethan and Jacobean writers found Chaucer a major poet. The poems most frequently used--TC, KnT, and ClT--show that they regarded Chaucer as a romantic not a comic writer. He is used for a brief reference or quotation, a subsidiary source, or…

Chaucer frequently gives his characters gestures which are not in his sources in order more fully to reflect the inner lives of the actors. His most frequent gestures center on eyes and faces.

The Canterbury pilgrimage is, among other things, an attempt by some of the pilgrims to sublimate the sex drive.

The basic narrative unit is limited to nine possible combinations. These combinations can be illustrated by application to the four tales of the Marriage Group in CT. These nine relationships can also be applied to characters, to the relationships…

Fisher's reading "wight" (1977) in WBT 117 is preferable to Donaldson's "wrighte." FranT 867-72 contains phrasing which is reminiscent of Fisher's proposed meaning of WBT 117: "And created by so wise a Being."

Jankyn's theories of the dissemination of sound and odor coincide precisely with those of medieval science as presented by Albertus Magnus in his "Liber de sensu et sensato." Chaucer draws upon these widely disseminated medieval views rather than…

The point of the proverb that a man may not sin with his own wife or cut himself with his own knife is reversed in MerT. Chaucer intends the effect of surprise to create a sense of the nature and significance of January's wrong headedness.

Search for the title of this volume under Alternative Title for individual essays that pertain to Chaucer.

The Pardoner, making, through structure, game of his tale's morality and morality of its game, wishes the Pilgrims to play gullible churchgoers and to depose the Host, who rebuffs him. NPT's structure reveals covert anti-feminism manifesting the…

The Middle Ages had developed a sophisticated semiotic theory. The legend of Troy permitted poets to explore language as the living expression of the social order. The principal sphere of action of TC is words, not swordblows or even kisses.

The storm imagery in TC reinforces the emotional turmoil revealed in the narrative.

Argues for the later date on two counts. First, discrepancies in the records allow only the conclusion that in 1361 Blanche was at least 14 years of age. Second, the custom of early marriage makes plausible that Blanche was only 12 when married in…

Verbal action in Chaucer may take the form of a series of verbal encounters, as in BD; or a long monologue, as Dorigen's is and Chauntecleer's may as well be. Chauntecleer talks himself out of fear of dreams; Dorigen talks herself out of suicide;…

Small debates turn on method, large debates on content--goals and purposes. Chaucer's BD and the Old English "Solomon and Saturn" are comparable big debates. In BD the Dreamer is converted, not refuted, when he recognizes the "routhe" the Knight…

The Boethian neo-platonic truth (man is immortal) gives insight into love's complexities and purpose and thematic unity to the "Somnium" precis and the love-vision. Nature's "governaunce" over the birds, like the Boethian bond of love, parallels the…

Machaut provides the nearest precedents, the most probable chief sources, for all of Chaucer's independent love lyrics printed in Robinson except "The Complaint of Venus," wherein Chaucer follows Graunson, and "A Balade of Complaint," most probably…

Though Chaucer obliquely refers to the positive interpretation of the Mars-Venus-Vulcan myth (in the gift by Vulcan to Harmonia of a brooch), he stresses the negative--that the martial man is best advised to avoid the temptations of love. The…

The Physcian and the Pardoner both claim to be healers, but both capitalize on human sickness. Their function as healers is ironically undercut and their tales are thematically related by a common vision of death as terminal rather than transcendent…

Chaucer's characters' beards, medievally understood, are iconographic and physiognomic, and neatly fit the personalities of their wearers.

A study of unity in CT focuses upon justice and law. Commentaries available to Chaucer and his audience include the writings of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Sacred Scripture. Legal texts include Glanville, Bracton, Horn, and court records. …

The arrangement of CT proposed by Henry Bradshaw a century ago solves the problems of geography and the Endlink to MLT which are present in the Ellesmere arrangement. Recent arguments against the Bradshaw shift offer no real evidence to reject it.

The comic climax, marked by carefully prepared effects of surprise, is the distinctive feature of the fabliaux. Action more than character development or setting characterizes the preparation. As regards genre, the fabliaux have relatively little…

The Manciple, Physician, and Clerk strain the notion of fictive propriety with their stories. They exploit the storytelling occasion by attempting to come to terms with their estates and the often oppressive audience through replicating conditions…

GP is a coherent structure indicating a subtle spiritual reality coinciding to Christian doctrines. It is not seen simply as a social vision, but as encircling both moral and spiritual truths which match: generosity to "gentils," materialism to…

In the opening of GP, Chaucer follows the six days of Creation narrated in Genesis. The principles both of "natura naturata," created Nature, and of "natura naturans," renewing Nature, inform this passage.