Browse Items (16376 total)

Dream visions of Langland, Chaucer, and the "Pearl"-poet use "not simply a common external form but one that contains an internal, intrinsic dynamic or strategy as well"; it derives from the "skepticism and nominalism of Augustine,…

In chapter 7, "Discrediting the Vision: The House of Fame" (pp. 184-207), Barr argues that HF portrays an active, unreliable visionary, one who unsuccessfully employs cognitive faculties to try to understand the contents of divinely granted vision.…

Argues that Middle English writers employ gendered terms at moments when they are probing new ideas about women's roles; writers "invented womanhood" to describe women's experiences beyond their relation to men. KnT and ClT use gendered language to…

Focuses on the role of authorship within the scribal process, and emphasizes "intertextuality" as an important facet of medieval historiography. Briefly discusses how Chaucer "de-authorizes" Adam Scriveyn's work, yet reveals his own authorship in…

Examines multilingualism in the Middle Ages, in particular its role in medieval literature, and focuses on merchants and their transportation of language as well as goods. Chapters 1 and 2 deal extensively with Chaucer's exposure to "London's many…

Collection of essays on ekphrastic discourse from the eleventh to the seventeenth century in texts written in Middle English, but also Medieval Latin, Old French, Middle Scots, Middle High German, and Early Modern English. For four essays that…

Includes essays dedicated to Richard Green Firth that explore a variety of medieval topics. Examines issues related to oral and written cultural networks, book and social history, vernacular studies, and media studies. For three essays that pertain…

Presents Lacanian analysis of desire in CT that focuses on the "circulation of the signifier" and the generative power of misrecognition/misreading. Clarifies the meaning and function of fundamental concepts (subject, signifier, Other, aggressivity,…

Seventeen essays that explore representation of Chaucer and CT on film and television, with recurrent attention to the limited number and scope of such adaptations. The introduction by the editors, "Chaucer on Screen," (pp. 1-16) comments on…

Examines the process of medieval poetic invention expressed in the poetry of Chaucer and John Gower. Draws on contemporary affect theory to present ways that both poets present "invention as an affective force" in representations of emotional…

Investigates the rhetorical and creative potentials of the idea of authorship as it developed in medieval English literature and established the basis of authorial "prestige and power" for future literary tradition. Individual chapters assess works…

Collects ten essays by various authors that discuss lists and listing as epistemological, rhetorical, and poetic devices, with an introduction by the editors ("Enlistment as Poetic Stratagem"), and a comprehensive index. For four essays that pertain…

Collects twelve essays that celebrate friendship among women in medieval literature, with an Introduction by the editors, an Afterword by Penelope Anderson, and a cumulative Index. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Women's Friendship…

Assesses various medieval works to show that training instructions for medieval falconry "offer a means of understanding how poetic languageworks, and particularly how it works to represent women." One section describes how metaphors of mewed hawks…

Studies uses in late medieval England of French lyric models (formes fixes) as "reparative" translation of francophone culture, and response to linguistic and political trends and tensions of the Hundred Years War. Includes discussion of Chaucer's…

Describes a "widespread nationalistic feeling" in late medieval and early modern Scotland, with particular attention to Latin chroniclers, court poets in the reign of James IV, and their similar uses of Scottish myths of origin in resistance to…

Explores the implications of illegality in Chaucer's GP description of the Sergeant at Law as a "purchasour."

In TC, a vision of love and death, Chaucer uses black and white to portray Criseyde as ambiguous: she shares her whiteness with Venus but is linked with death and its symbolic blackness.

Widespread acceptance of C. S. Lewis's belief that Criseyde's ruling passion is fear has resulted in a limited version of her motivation, for an equally powerful force, "routhe," works sometimes with and sometimes against her fear. The two forces…

Explores the relationship between fragments I and II and the "Marriage Group," reading the tales in I and II and III through V as "an ongoing discourse between Chaucer and the ultimate narrator and reader." Argues that Kittredge's concept of the…

Comments on how uses of the term "solas" help to establish character in TC and Tho.

Treats WBP, hermeneutics, and Chaucer and Wycliffism. Investigating whether and why Chaucer might have given Wycliffite traits to the Wife of Bath, Martin argues that he did in order to explore both faults and virtues of literal-minded…

Reviews providential readings of CT, asserting that nominalism furnishes theological context for MLT; contrasts MLT with its source in Trevet; and surveys use of the term "nominalism." In MLT, God's remoteness and arbitrariness ad the "extreme…

Suggests that details of ShT may reflect historical incidents involving Pedro I ("the Cruel") of Castile, his various marital scandals, and a Spanish-English naval battle near Bruges. Comments on Chaucer's connections with Spain.

Sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer's works "reflect a gradual transition from text-based definitions of what constitutes Chaucer to author-focused ones." Bly considers Thynne's edition of 1532, Stowe's of 1561, and Speght's of 1602, discussing…