Browse Items (16376 total)

Looks at Chaucer's use of "two sententiae" to explore the interplay between Chaucer's use of silences and pauses in PrT, and the reader's engagement with the story.

Argues for an "ethical" reading of Chaucer's view of poetry in CT distinct from didacticism, examining Chaucer's engagement with sententiae of Plato and St. Paul and suggesting that, for Chaucer, poetry's value is in the process of interpretation it…

Considers the relationship between the Wife of Bath and the Clerk, focusing on their shared approach to self-presentation through the words of other writers and their interrelationship as speakers. Highlights the Wife's use of clerical authority and…

Examines Chaucer's use of sun-king imagery and references to Apollo in a variety of works. Compiles historical connections among Chaucer's allusions and Richard II and other political figures' iconography, suggesting a multivalent portrayal of…

Questions the idea that Chaucer's relationship with the alliterative verse of his contemporaries, such as the "Gawain"-poet and Langland, was antagonistic. Instead, suggests that the alliterative and the London poets participate in a shared metrical…

In Chaucer's England, the legal term "homicide" ("deliberate infliction of death," justified or not) was distinct from "murder," which carried negative moral connotations but had no legal definition. In CT, Chaucer uses the terms precisely and…

Argues that the characterizations in Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop" were influenced by Chaucer's GP descriptions, particularly those of his ecclesiastical characters. The two authors also share a tendency to avoid rigid schemata of…

Assesses the poetic structure of Edwin Arlington Robinson's "The Man Against the Sky," demonstrating that it "juxtaposes two dissimilar ideas forcing a new understanding of relationship" in an inorganic fashion similar to that found in Ovid, Chaucer,…

In the drawing of the Canterbury Pilgrims, Blake's antithetical method, employing ironic juxtaposition and counterpoint, invites the viewer to participate in the exercise of the Divine Vision of forgiveness by distinguishing "States from Individuals…

Adapts aspects of CT (particularly WBPT, PardPT, and MilT), "Everyman," and "Piers Plowman" in a single plot, designed for the stage, with a brief Introduction and stage directions.

An anthology of selections from medieval literatures that influenced J. R. R. Tolkien: Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, Celtic (Welsh and Irish), and Finnish. Includes RvT, NPT, and FranT (pp. 127-53), translated by John S. P. Tatlock and…

Yvernault explores various levels of the love discourse in PF in relation to the roles played by reflection and silence.

Surveys recent criticism of ClT, focusing on Griselda as allegory, as "a figure of divinity," and as a flat figure. Concludes that Griselda may simply be read as a real person.

Kendrick considers a portion of PardP (lines 352-88) in light of two thirteenth-century charlatans' spiels invented for performance by jongleurs: Rutebeuf's "Dit de l'herberie" and Peire Cardenal's "Dit de l'onguent."

Piety and pathos heighten the impact of PrT and promote the narrator's reputation for religious correctness, yet all aspects of her Tale are undermined by pointlessness. Greenwood argues that the Tale is dialogistic and Menippean; a satirical subtext…

Explores the combination of "manly" and "man," as well as the meaning of "manly," in reference to the GP description of the Monk.

Contradictions inherent in medieval social order are evident in the sources of Mel, but Chaucer reconciles these contradictions through his treatment of pity.

Analyzes Chaucer's characterization of the birds in PF to explore the process of "distanciation," stemming from two coexisting viewpoints in the poem: the author's and the dreamer's.

Yvernault explores the representation of space(s) and the problem of deconstruction in HF, focusing on the poem as textual architecture.

Alliteration, not infrequent in Chaucer, fulfils several functions. It is mimetic in the description of battles (KnT) and the harmony of the spheres (TC); metrical, when binding two parts of a line or several lines together (BD); and syntactic:…

Explicates Chaucer's uses of grammatical tenses in GP, especially in the descriptions of the Knight, Squire, and Yeoman, distinguishing how various tenses and narrative points of view direct readers' reactions to the pilgrims. Considers indirect…

Though BD is highly structured, ambiguity pervades it, raising questions about the relationships between dreaming and writing, illusory experience and textual reality, and psychological emptiness and poetic fruition.

Explores whether there is a distinctive Lollard vocabulary. While the usual method is to identify words in Lollard writings that would not be used in orthodox literature, the author highlights the absence of some orthodox words and sees what words…

Greenwood studies types of friendship, plus the positive and negative values attached to friendship, in FranT, MerT, and Mel.

CT reflects the medieval philosophical debate over universals, posing traditional literature in tension with more fully actualised characterization.