Browse Items (16472 total)

Four historical paintings by Ford Madox Brown (1821-93) exhibit the interplay among literature, art, and religion in Victorian medievalism. Chaucer is the primary focus in The Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry (1845) and Chaucer at the Court of…

Biblical analogies embedded in KnT constitute an implied critique of the pre-Christian setting: Palamon and Arcite's first sight of Emelye accords with David's first sight of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:2); loving Emelye reorganizes Arcite's psyche and…

Analyzes the rhetorical structure, themes, and wordplay of the first thirty-four lines of GP, arguing that in CT Chaucer maintains "his commitment to the coherence of creation within the narrative framework of Christianity."

Gauges Chaucer's attitude toward "reason and revelation," and argues that "one of the structural principles" of CT is the "pursuit of moral wisdom," particularly in movement from KnT to ParsT and in the image of pilgrimage.

Ret is a well-crafted, planned conclusion to ParsT rather than the result of a deathbed religious crisis.

Chrétien's "Erec and Enide" does not celebrate courtly love but provides a "model for rightly ordered desire." Chaucer highlights the "social and spiritual value" of marriage in CT, PF, TC, and various lyrics. Henry VIII's own theatrics, however,…

Observes that St. Matthew's account of the Canaanite's interaction with Christ is far more descriptively verbose than the version recorded by St. Mark, and argues that in SNP Chaucer very purposefully chose Matthew's version in order to augment his…

Contends that although "Pearl" and PrPT treat the Eucharist as orthodox, they nonetheless evoke religious debates concerning Lollardy and, relatedly, continental female mysticism. Argues that both the works feminize sacramental work, preach in ways…

Argues that theological modes of inquiry are needed in interdisciplinary approaches to literature that have tended toward secular and "reductive" methodologies. Notes the difficulty of teaching theological modes of inquiry through Chaucer when few…

Contrasts the ending of PrT with Latin analogues to argue that the Tale is less concerned with miracles than with martyrdom--Jewish martyrdom as well as Christian--whereby Chaucer suggests the need for mourning human death.

Webb briefly cites two CT characters: the Prioress is an unusual, but not impossible, instance of a nun on a local (as opposed to a foreign) pilgrimage; the Wife of Bath parallels several historical women who capitalized on their peripatetic…

Discusses problems of translating medieval texts, especially CT and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," treating problems of cultural distance and reception as well as linguistic aspects.

Collette reads the end of CT against Philippe de Mézières' "Songe du vieil pelerin," indicating Chaucer's connections with contemporary Anglo-French literature and exploring the relations between politics and morality in four Tales: alchemy as a…

Examines features of CT that make it difficult to fit the work into the modern "frame" of teleological development, medieval to modern. Focuses on "postmodern" features of the work, its tensions between allegory and realism, and its game-like…

MLT engages with ideas found in Latin and French treatises advocating crusade and assesses the rhetoric and practices of crusades, critiquing their mercantile aims, the ignorance of cultural differences dooming efforts to convert Muslims, and poor…

Pity's "double life" as person and quality "calls attention to the mechanics" of allegory and to one's "ordinary" experience of pity; through word play, pity is both dead to the frustrated lover and alive to others.

Swooning in medieval literature points to a marked cultural contrast between medieval sensibilities and modern ones for which swooning is extreme and exceptional. This broad survey defines swooning as a "loss of consciousness, brought on by…

Chaucer, Lydgate, and Henryson recognized a song's ability to excite and articulate passionate feeling and they invoke the idea of song in their works in ways that call attention "to the formal qualities of song itself." Zeeman inquires into "the…

In their attention to language as "an active part of social life," the FranT, NPT, and ManT constitute a language group whose tales are deeply rhetorical in the sense that they look closely at how language works as "an entity, process or phenomenon,"…

Examines twenty-five CT mss in which "Gamelyn" appears and makes suggestions about the tale's relationship to the CT, arguing against the notion that early scribes included it on "wholly whimsical grounds." Its inclusion early in the textual…

Considers various conditions of and approaches to pronouncing--or not pronouncing--final "-e" in Chaucer's verse, arguing that "Chaucer's final "-es" are a subjective quality of his verse, a series of phonological events structured not by metrical or…

A portion of a copy of Caxton's first edition of CT was "harvested" to make a run of "leaf books" for the Caxton Club. Mosser describes the project, the known portions of the dismembered book, the known copies of Caxton's first edition, collectors'…

Historical background: assesses the "social and military role of the squire" in England and northern France.

Historical background of the chess game in knightly culture with a reference to BD.

Comments on the theme of marriage in Chaucer's works to indicate the poet's "capacious view of love and sexuality." Chaucer's representations of marriage range from bawdy humor in WBP to the sublime in BD, often combining more than one view, as in…