Browse Items (16350 total)

Reviews scholarly criticism of TC. Argues that the effectiveness of the work is in part the result of Chaucer shaping the reader's complicity with Pandarus. Also discusses Criseyde's desirability, and the theme of sexuality in TC and LGW.

Discusses the perception of sexual violence in medieval literature, using WBT and "Perceval" by Purcelle de Lis as primary case studies, and describes the medieval misconception that equates sexual assault with heroism.

Discusses scholarly interpretations of May and Damyan's sexual encounter in MerT, comparing the ideas that it could be categorized as rape/"rough love," an erotic tryst, or an act of female empowerment.

Includes brief consideration of sexuality in Chaucer's work, with specific mention of MilT, RvT, and TC.

Focuses primarily on John Gower's "Confessio Amantis," but does compare Gower's use of spiritual love with Chaucer's subversive lust.

Trinity College, Dublin, MS 389 (formerly D.2.8) includes three alchemical texts that are Chaucerian apocrypha. Timmerman corrects Gareth W. Dunleavy's 1965 discussion of this manuscript.

Demonstrates that John Lydgate's modifications of his sources in his "Troy Book" result in a "convincing picture of the ancient world," although Lydgate did not achieve the superior historical texture that Chaucer produced in KnT.

Commends BD for its reconciliation of extreme tones: despair derived from "earth-shattering sorrow" and "intellectual hope" derived from "heaven-sent consolation." Inspired by Bothus's "Consolation of Philosophy," Chaucer achieves consolation and…

Defines the saint's life as a "poetic genre of fiction with a basic fidelity to the mysteries of grace and Providential care," a product of Latin rhetorical tradition modified by generations of Christian figural thinking. As reflected in the "Acta…

The Physcian and the Pardoner both claim to be healers, but both capitalize on human sickness. Their function as healers is ironically undercut and their tales are thematically related by a common vision of death as terminal rather than transcendent…

Recent Princeton performances of the "Officium Peregrinorum" (from Luke 24) reveal probable echoes in CT of the liturgical drama of Christ's pilgrimage to Emmaus in the pilgrimage frame itself, in the poet who like Christ uses "lying" fables to…

Theologically, the Blessed Virgin is highly venerated, with "hyperdulia," but she is nevertheless only a means to the one mediator, Christ (1 Tim. 2.5), who is worshiped with "latria." This distinction, most unusual for a work of literature, is a…

The decade of residence over Aldgate, the gateway to the teeming life of medieval London, supplied Chaucer with the buoyancy and liveliness that characterize HF.

The character of January is indebted to the doctrine of "doublemindedness" promulgated in the Epistle of James, especially as interpreted by Bede. The tale demonstrates the inner temptation undergone by those who waver between charity and cupidity;…

The innovative material in the first three books of Capgrave's "Life" is indebted to the fifteenth century's interest in Chaucer's "elevated" and pious passages, especially those in TC. Stylistically, however, Capgrave's attempt to emulate his…

Symkyn's name is diminutive of Simon and thus calls up the story of Simon the Magician as found in the Acts of Peter. In a larger sense the rise and inevitable fall of pride that is the tales structural skeleton gains resonance when placed against…

Chaucer's revision of the Saint Cecilia legend emphasizes her desire to act as a free agent. Her virginity and her aggressive activity on behalf of Christ assert a "freedom of action to do her work" that parallels the Wife of Bath's.

From KnT to CkT, tales degenerate from magnificence to grossness. MLT attempts to establish decorum but backfires on the teller, who "courts the sin of presumption."

Chaucer transforms Bede's commentary on the symbolism in Saint John's vision. Chaucer twists the beryl, the eagle, the four beasts, the seven stars, and numerology, giving a sense that Lady Fame is an unlawful ruler. HF is purposely unfinished.

Critics such as Bennett and Lumiansky discuss Chaucer's Christianization of classical thought, but his adaptation of the "Somnium" in PF actually critiques its limitations. The naive narrator, looking for the "certayn" divine knowledge, is vaguely…

Via reference to and obvious knowledge of St. Augustine's doctrine of spiritual healing through self-punishment and the concept of Christ the Physician, the Pardoner (despite his blatant duplicitous misuse of Church teaching) ascertains his pride and…

Argues in Freudian terms that dreams in TC disclose psychological aspects of the characters. Criseyde's dream (II, 925-31), added by Chaucer to his source, Boccaccio's "Filostrato," indicates her desire for ravishment and marks her early submission…

Argues that MerT reflects delusive male infantile fantasy, reading January as ego, Placebo as id, Justinus as super-ego, and May as an idealized mother figure. The Merchant's encomnium of marriage and Damain's courtly behavior are extensions of…

The Canterbury pilgrimage is, among other things, an attempt by some of the pilgrims to sublimate the sex drive.

Several passages in TC indicate a covert incestuous strain between Criseyde and Pandarus, the "senex amans" who uses Troilus to fulfill vicariously his own sexual fantasies.