Browse Items (16472 total)

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…

Approaches the tale-telling contest of CT as its "ludonarrative framework" and analyzes its "gaming elements," arguing that--complicating the win/loss binary--the work queers victory, depicts the "abundant pleasures of defeat," and reformulates "the…

The Wife of Bath and Falstaff are superb "actors" who use rhetorical tools to triumph on their "stages," citing Scripture, twisting logic, and spouting proverbs for their own purposes.

Although TC is not a source for "Othello," Pandarus and Iago use similar tactics to manipulate others.

Both in "Romeo and Juliet" and in PardT "the rhetoric through which death appears to be sought...is the means by which its reality and meaning are evaded."

Direct indebtedness of "Merry Wives" to GP, WBT, and FranT cannot be established, but "circumstantial evidence is considerable."

Both Petruchio and the Wife of Bath see their spouses as "shrewish." Like Chaucer, Shakespeare employs images of taming and teaching, clothes, hats, and kisses to "reinforce the theme of mastery in marriage."

Falstaff and the Wife of Bath "use remarkably similar grammatical and syntactical strategies to manipulate language," to create "smokescreens" that cover their "nakedness," and "to try to reshape the world in their own image."

Inspired by the ironic use of the Pyramus and Thisbe myth in LGW Shakespeare employs the myth to parody the young lovers in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," mocking both Chaucer and his courtly poem.

The gardens of MerT and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" are not idyllic "gardens of love" but "gardens of vanity," the setting for human deceit, folly, and cruelty.

Describes the founding of the Chaucer Society (1868), the New Chaucer Society (1977), and their accomplishments.

Assesses why Hoccleve, the first person who attempted to establish Chaucer as the Father of English poetry, failed to "claim his own position as direct lineal heir in this literary genealogy."

Although critics often criticize the monk and wife of ShT for their lack of morals, the merchant's own dealings are not without blame. His bill of exchange may be illegal, and it parallels the arrangement between monk and wife. All three characters…

Chaucer treats NPT in his characteristically ambiguous manner--transcending his sources, denying, or transfiguring them. The Nun's Priest loses control of his argument, but the poet does not. In reducing the Fall of Man to a literal episode, Chaucer…

Chaucer uses the conventions of Machaut in BD to undermine them, demonstrating to his English readers that the French poetic tradition was two-dimensional, "narrow in scope and appeal, read primarily for diversion and reflection."

In RvT, Symkin's wife is not as "worthy as stinking ditch water" but "as worthy as ditch water is stinking."

Usk borrowed from TC for his Testament of Love, often using quotations to describe his spiritual love for Margarite. Usk is a kind of Pandarus (deceiving, flattering, and self-serving), and his employment as a clerk sheds light on the reception and…

Emerson's allusion in "The Poet" to the lecture on gentility in WBT attributes the sentiment to Chaucer (rather than to the Wife), concentrates on the fire's brightness, and suggests that the passage refers to "good blood in mean condition." Since…

Chaucer's political commentary is often disguised by ambiguity--the refusal ever to mean one thing--and the multiple nuances of his words. In revising LGWP, Chaucer inserted allusions to the "dangerous talk" of his day--to texts and interpretation…

In its concerns with social rank and professional distractions, the marriage of Arveragus and Dorigen in FranT mirrors that of Chaucer and Philippa. The theme of the Tale (that true love cannot be maintained without outside considerations) might…