Browse Items (16376 total)

Greenwood contrasts Chaucer's and Malory's uses of models and antimodels in depictions of chivalry and courtly love.

Greenwood examines the meaning of "manly" as applied to the character of Theseus in KnT.

As Greenwood has shown in a previous study, garlanding often implied criticism. In KnT and A Midsummer's Night's Dream, however, it is an acknowledgment of power.

Yvernault explores the relationships among marginal spaces, architectural frames, sense, and self-assertion.

Yvernault focuses on the narrative imbalance in MilT caused by the intrusions of the margin through description of holes and through open and broken architectural structures.

Establishes the relationship between film pictures and manuscript margins as peripheral comments on the central object.

Morrison examines textual transmission before print, referring to Chaucer as evidence of authors' concerns about deficient scribal copying.

Studies the contents, significance, and function of medieval manuscripts, commenting briefly on WBP.

Focuses on Ackroyd's use of Chaucer's "formulism" (Zumthor) and reflects on how successful the accumulation of medieval formulas and sayings really is.

Explores the type, use, and functions of formulas in Th, in relation to parody; in Mel, in dramatic form reinforcing allegory.

Posits that uncertainty and ambiguity are structuring stylistic techniques of Chaucer's descriptions in PF.

Studies Chaucer's Bo to determine which texts, versions, and commentaries Chaucer might have used and which modifications he might have introduced and to what purposes.

Focuses on Theseus in KnT as Chaucer's critique of power-holders in general.

Identifies the "contrast between surface respectability and corrupt motive [as] the keenest source of the comedy" in ShT, and suggests that there is a pun on "cozen" and "cousin." Explores similar contrasts and other devices in CT that produce comic…

Identifies modern analogues to ShT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 8.1 in Thomas Menkel's 1946 short story, "Secret Debt," and Menkel's reported source in a "Scotch joke," surmising general transmission of the tale.

Seeks to illuminate "the kind of order that Chaucer was in the process of imposing" on the CT, focusing on the "definite beginning" and "definite end" rather than the "great middle." Treats GP, where Chaucer sets his topic ("variety of the created…

Identifies and summarizes a close, modern analogue of ShT, written by Shelby Foote and published in "The Nugget" (November, 1955); comments on the oral transmission described by Foote in an interview and points outs several modern emphases.

Assesses Chaucer's uses of Boccaccio and Boethius as source material in KnT, addressing the omission of Arcite's apotheosis and the subordination of the pagan gods to providential order. Focuses on Palamon's and Arcite's prayers and Theseus' final…

Describes an "experiment in the use of oral reading as a means of teaching" TC that increased students' "critical appreciation" of the poem and Chaucer's art.

Challenges Paul Ruggiers' essay, "Some Philosophical Aspects of 'The Knight's Tale'" (1958), maintaining that the critic fails to distinguish between Chaucer's views and those of the Knight, and disagreeing with his interpretations of several points…

Explores the symbolic value of the gems, their colors, and their settings (rings and brooch) in TC, discussing the moral implications referred to in medieval lapidaries.

Argues that the Yeoman attends the Knight rather than the Squire in GP, considering evidence of dress and character, and adducing William Caxton's "The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry."

Uses principles of Kenneth Burke's rhetoric of form to analyze NPT, commenting on aspects of its progressions (syllogistic, inverted, and repetitive), aspects of its genre conventions, and examples of its rhetorical ornamentation.

Investigates the dramatic ironies of PardPT (comparing them with those of WBPT), arguing that the Pardoner does not reveal "more than he intends, but rather the converse": that none of the pilgrims "is able to see the full meaning of what he says"…

Argues that the main characters of ClT "have Oedipal fixations": Griselda, a masochistic form that correlates with "an incestuous quality in her relationship with her father," and Walter, a sadistic version that reverberates with the Cupid/Psyche…