Browse Items (16379 total)

Addresses Chaucer's discourse on medieval political principles, including kingship and hierarchical order. Examines SqT, Mel, KnT, ClT, LGW, PF, and Sted.

Offers essays that reflect the variety of critical viewpoints of medieval writers, including William Langland and Chaucer. Part 2 is devoted to Chaucer scholarship. For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval English Literature…

Contends that Chaucer's portrait of the Plowman in GP and "The Plowman's Tale" contribute to an understanding of how late medieval plowman traditions influenced early modern writings.

Presents a collection of essays to support teaching of "Piers Plowman." For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman under Alternative Title.

Proposes to resituate Pity within a "medieval mode of metaphysical poetry" because of its "collective subjectivity." Reveals how Pity, because of its allegorical and lyrical metaphysical aspects, deserves closer attention as an "example of medieval…

Explores ways that Chaucer plays with the "work of makyng" in Adam and Pr–ThL. Reinforces that Chaucer's "middleness," or ability to remain in the "process of making," is revealed in these rhyme royal works.

Reexamines own earlier writings about Troilus's metaphysical "philosophizing response" and journey in TC, in response to a critique from Spearing from March 25, 1989.

Examines the "unresolved ending" of the "Legend of Philomela" in LGW.

Examines the lexicographical meaning of the word "experience" to gain an understanding of Chaucer's meaning and intent in WBP.

Considers the hermeneutic value of Spearing's concept of "experientiality" in KnT. Defines "roaming" as "an investigation of the relation between bodily experience and language."

Argues that CT and Gower's "Confessio Amantis" take the form of French "dit" poems. Claims that both works fit the genre because they have "sufficient 'dit'-like features."

Begins with an introduction to Spearing's place in scholarship and situates him in the wider context of English and American approaches to texts. Follows with a chronological bibliography of Spearing's published work. This collection of essays is…

Uses selected Arthuriana to describe the development of chivalric romance and offer a descriptive definition of the genre. Emphasizes the non-centered, unstable nature of the romance, although contrasting it with postmodernist works. Notes Chrétien…

Examines the textbook practices of the medieval primary schools--the "grammar schools" or "grammatica"--as underlying the transition from Latin to English as the primary language of "literary" composition in England during the fourteenth century.…

Introduces Chaucer's life and describes each of his major works in chronological order, identifying the French context of BD, the Italian travels and reading that influenced him later, the philosophical concerns of TC, and his self-representations in…

Includes previously published essays on English medieval writers, including Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and Ranulph Higden. Contains one unpublished essay, "Towards a Bohemian Reading of Troilus and Criseyde." Topics are divided into subsections:…

Places the "Gawain"-poet "within the context of Richard II's court and its numerous intrigues" (ix), with chapters on each of his poems (including "Saint Erkenwald"); a life; "A Survey of Sources and Influences"; and a chronology, glossary of…

Argues that Chaucer "contextualizes virtues through narrative." Provides close study of Chaucer's treatment of virtues and ethics in CT and TC.

Examines the narrative and linguistic effects of the Hundred Years War, and claims that the war functions similarly to the Conquest of 1066 as an event that shapes a relationship between word and war and emphasizes the mimetic relationship between…

Surveys the presence and significance of the anus and excrement in medieval culture, particularly the religious thought and literature of the age. Includes brief comments on Chaucer's references to dung, farting, and rear-ends in MilT, MerT, SumP,…

Includes essays on readings of Middle English texts, Middle English syntax, and styles of Middle English alliterative poetry. Chapter 2 concerns reading of one line in GP. Chapter 7 concerns Chaucer's use of the modal auxiliary verb ought. In…

Explores how speakers' "understanding of their world and their lives" in KnT is "encoded in language," focusing on uses of the auxiliary "moten" and connecting it with the theme of necessity in the tale. Concludes that, in the terms of cognitive…

Argues that Chaucer's coinage "blisfulnesse" (also "welefulnesse") in Bo is a calque on the Latin models of "beatitude" and "felicitas," reflecting the poet's sensitivity to complicated conditions of discourse.

Tabulates, describes, and analyzes the interjections used in RvT, summarizing their functions, etymologies, morphologies, and semantics, and using the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse to explore the extent to which the usage in RvT is…

Describes the pragmatic complexities of greetings and farewells and the limitations of using edited literary examples to explore their history. Tabulates and analyzes 140 instances of greetings and farewells in CT, attending to concerns of social…