Browse Items (16376 total)

Includes introductions to seven authors and works of western literature, keyed to texts in translation or modernization available in the "Great Books of the Western World" series. The "Sixth Reading" here (pp. 139-66) pertains to Chaucer and CT,…

Written without footnotes for the nonspecialist, the book deals with Chaucer's Catholic-catholic Christian humanism, treating Chaucer as a Christian courtier whose comments on the church and the laity; sex, love, and marriage; the Old Testament and…

Credits Chaucer "[m]ore than any other single person . . . with establishing the position of Middle English," describing him as a "major figure in politics as well as literature," and declaring that CT "achieved instant popularity" and that it is the…

Comprises appreciative discussions of sixty "classics" of world literature, from "Gilgamesh" to the plays of Chekhov, including a discussion of CT (pp. 141-45) that emphasizes Chaucer's skills of characterization and comments on relations between…

Illustrated anthology of English literature and literary criticism from Old English into the twentieth century, with a section entitled "The Time of Chaucer" that includes NPT and PardT, along with "Interesting Sidelights," "The Royal Tree," and "The…

Studies the use of pictorial imagery in neoclassical English poetry, its aesthetic effects, and the "tradition out of which it grew," from the classics forward. Includes discussion of the Chaucer's ekphrastic descriptions in HF, KnT, and Rom,…

Identifies and describes geographical names and places used by Chaucer or evidently known to him. Arranged alphabetically, the dictionary lists names, describes the places, and their occurrences in Chaucer's works, offering etymologies for British…

HF expresses the "unreliability" of authority, as evident in the "style and structure" of the poem. Defines "fame" as the "body of traditional information that confronted the educated fourteenth-century reader" and shows how and where HF manifests…

Anatomizes irony as a literary device. Includes one example from Chaucer: details of the Monk's description (GP 1.177-82) describing it as straightforward irony that is stable, covert, and local, "firm as a rock" when "discovered by the proper…

Investigating the period between 1431 and 1631, Summit argues that libraries--particularly the Parker, the Cotton, and the Bodleian--enabled early modern projects of historical and cultural redefinition concurrent with Reformation ideology and…

Examines frames of cultural reference (legal, domestic, physical, and literary--especially romance), arguing that "two versions of masculinity defined the socially performed lives of men in late medieval England." The first version was normative and…

Studies the currents and cross-currents of pedagogy, moral didacticism, and entertainment in children's literature, exploring how trends in reading and interpretation recur as the subject matter of the stories and help to define their historical…

Explores the relationship between textuality and sexuality in various texts, including Martianus Capella's "De nuptiis philologiae et mercurii," Jean de Meun's "Roman de la rose," and PardT, particularly the Pardoner's invitation to the Host to kiss…

Poetic narrative based on characters and plot of TC, set in contemporary Troy, Wisconsin.

Examines fiction's role in shaping readers' ethics: the transformation of the narrator encourages and mirrors the transformation of the reader (protrepsis). Discusses medieval texts that theorize themselves and teach the reader how to read, positing…

Traces the development, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, of a "new trend in western European literature," a concern with trade between Europe and "Farther Asia": i.e., from Iran and the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Focuses on…

Explores a tradition of literature about dying that "combines medieval work
on the philosophy of language with contemporary theorizing on death and dying." Analyzes dying and tragedy in KnT, PardT, and BD.

Studies marvels, wonders, and human imagination in medieval natural philosophy and literature, especially romance and travel narratives of western European and Islamic communities. Refers to several of the CT and links aspects of FranT with "Sir…

A social history of Dartmouth and the lower Dart river valley; includes the suggestion that William Smale was the model for Chaucer's GP description of the Shipman.

An anthology of lyrics and excerpts, including lines from KnT (1.1074-1122) in Middle English. Earlier versions of the volume were published in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2008.

Presents over 600 entries on texts, critical debates, methodologies, cultural and historical contexts, and terminology on British literature from the fifth to the sixteenth century. Represents all medieval literatures, including Chaucer, and presents…

An anthology of literary quotations from English writers, arranged by the days of the months, January through December. Includes GP 1-18 under April 15.

Revised edition of A Companion to Chaucer (2000) with thirty-six new and revised chapters: Candace Barrington and Jonathan Hsy, "Afterlives"; Andrew Galloway, "Auctorite"; Jane Griffiths, "Biography; Linda Ehrsam Voight, "Bodies"; Alfred Thomas,…

Twenty-six chapters by various authors, with an Introduction by the editor in which she emphasizes diverse theoretical approaches to Middle English studies and observes that Chaucer's texts "foreground the idea that readers construct texts" (3).…

Includes twenty-six essays by individual authors that survey a range of issues in understanding the concept of "British literature" in the medieval period, considering history, politics, modes of production, literary forms, reception, religion,…