Browse Items (16376 total)

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…

Examines books of medieval maritime law (e.g., the "Oakbook of Southhampton," the "Tavola Amalfitana," and the "Consulat de Mar") to argue that the Shipman of GP knew the law, "worked the system," probably engaged in smuggling, and exploited…

Although the link between ManT and ParsT has been seen as tenuous, ManT leads symbolically and actually into ParsT, and it simultaneously extends the piety of ParsT back into CT as a whole.

In CT (especially WBT, PardT, CYT, PhyT, SNT, and MLT), Chaucer shares with Wyclif the belief that the Church had lost its miraculous power and its focus on salvation, and he stresses the importance of the individual's role in personal salvation. For…

"Kayrrud," the home of Arveragus in FranT, refers not to a "red fort," as Tatlock suggested (1914), but to "Kairiud," a fishing village "one mile east of Penmarch Head." Chaucer's knowledge of Middle Breton was more precise than commentators have…

The Canterbury Tales Project takes up where Rickert and Manly left off, presenting extant texts in ways that are accessible to and useful for all readers. Since the manuscripts derive from those copied by a select group of scribes a few years after…

Charles Cowden Clarke, Charles Knight, and John Saunders were the most effective popularizers of Chaucer for the common reader in nineteenth-century England. These individuals translated Chaucer into modern English and bowdlerized his language in…