Browse Items (16376 total)

Connotations of proverbs depend on their contexts--addresser, addressee, situation, purpose, etc. Chaucer's maturity in art is particularly discernible in his "misapplication" of them. This deviant use provides him with ample linguistic resources…

In view of Kiparsky's new theory (1977), we can show the differences of the metrical rules in the specific types of mismatches allowed in each of Chaucer's works. We can say that the constraints on mismatches became severer in an orderly way from…

Scholars of the early twentieth century such as Naunin and Manly denied any significant influence of medieval rhetoric upon Chaucer. In more recent days, however, this attitude has been reversed, so that Payne ("The Key of Remembrance") could claim…

Nonce words in CT illustrate a correlation between conventionality in subject matter and conventionality in diction. Because nonce words increase as Chaucer's career progresses, their frequency can be used for relative dating. Following this…

Fluent in English, French, Latin, and Italian, Chaucer realized the burden of responsibility in translating another poet's work. Also highly aware of the mutability of language, he sought to re-create new meaning in translations which he hoped would…

When Chaucer looked at old books, he not only saw the decorous verbal projections of medieval rhetorical archetypes, he heard the voice of a man like and unlike himself. The idea/language model which "rhetorica"-turned-"poetria" had generated became…

The French strain in Chaucer's poetry (though obviously strongest in his earlier career) pervades his "ouvre." So far as is known, however, Chaucer himself never worte an original line in that tongue.

Unlike Ovid and Dante, who speak for fate and the universal order, Chaucer and Ovid speak for "the comic pathos of human frailty and human pretensions." The central concern of Chaucer's HF, BD, PF, LGW, TC, KnT, and NPT is with the attempt, and…

Chaucer's favorite Latin author was Ovid, followed by Virgil and Statius, as well as several prose writers. The central problem in evaluating the Latin influence on Chaucer is to determine what sorts of manuscripts he used--not just texts,but…

Chaucer made at least two authenticated journeys to Italy whereby he gained a knowledge of the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Curiously, though he borrowed extensive narrative material from Boccaccio, Chaucer never mentions him by name as…

In Henryson's poem, contrary to traditional interpretation, Troilus is the more limited character and Cresseid the more noble.

The poets' adaptations of Chaucer's work in this era reflect the nature and principles of Chaucerian transformation for the eighteenth century. In his "Fables" Dryden emphasized the moral nature of the original poems and thus established a tradition…

The discovery of Dryden's indebtedness to Chaucer (TC, V, 817: "That Paradis stood formed in hire yen") for a line in "Absalom" ("And 'Paradise' was open'd in his face") is attributed in the California edition of Dryden's works to an article…

Like most of the early nineteenth-century critics, Leigh Hunt strove to bring about a popular revival of Chaucer. But more important, he was among the first to attempt a technical analysis of Chaucer's poetry and to link his poetry with the idea of…

Two sets of Chaucer illustrations altered the late eighteenth-century and early Romantic readers' perception of Chaucer: George Vertue's for Urry's edition (1721), and Thomas Stothard's for Bell (1782-83). Stothard's illustrations were later…

Blake's portraits of the Pardoner and Summoner in "Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims" bear strong resemblances to contemporary satirical portraits of William Pitt the Younger and Charles James Fox, respectively. The descriptions of the two pilgrims in…

English fifteenth-century court verse, comprising formal lyrics and Chaucerian apocrypha, has been neglected because it is not major, not easily accessible, and lacks appropriate criticism. Bases for a critical rationale include awareness of its…

Schowerling investigates the influence of Chaucer's TC on four writers of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Writers and works discussed include Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," Sidnam's paraphrase of TC, Shakespeare's "Troilus and…

The rhyme royal stanza takes its name from the fact that it was used in ballade contests in the fourteenth century to address real or imaginary royalty. Chaucer employed the stanza first for royal address in PF and TC. In MLT he used it to create a…

John Barbour in "The Bruce" (1375) depicts Sir James Douglas as conforming to the knightly ideal in character and manner,but not in physical appearance. In Chaucer's TC, Criseyde occasionally departs from the pattern of idealized heroine. Through…

Emphasis has shifted from the study of Chaucer as a realist and proto-novelist to the examination of his mode of presentation and his esthetics: principles of rhetoric, uses of style, and poetic theory.

Like his French predecessors, Chaucer employs a commonplace detail and dialogue to impart to his fabliaux a sense of domestic, small town, and rural life. However, while unity in design and treatment characterize the French fabliaux, Chaucer's are…

The author investigates some of the ways in which Chaucer exploited the scheme of CT to enlighten us about the nature of the art of narrative, and demonstrates some of the modern senses in which the poet dramatized the medieval pilgrims with…

The signs of unfinishedness which appear most prominently in Chaucer's unfinished pieces are also present in the more finished pieces, where they make a major contribution to Chaucer's meaning. Chaucer's unfinishedness is due in part to the uses he…

Gower's "Confessio" and Chaucer's CT reflect a process of mediation in which problematic social realities are restated or reconceived. The two writers treat two medieval aesthetics, unity-in-diversity and hierarchies, though Chaucer encourages…