Browse Items (16472 total)

A linguistic history of Old and Middle English that uses several Chaucerian examples to explain changes in morphology and phonology. Chapter 12 discusses Chaucer's contributions to English, to poetry, and to prosody. The apparatus indexes the…

Gauges the Pardoner's attitude toward his Canterbury audience, including the Host. In PardP, he reveals how he usually treats his audiences, then insults the pilgrims by leveling differences in PardT. Like Faus Semblant of the "Roman de la Rose," the…

Currie explores the hypocrisy and factionalism that underlie the characters' ostensible concerns with natural law and the common good in TC, arguing that Chaucer exposes the negative consequences (individual and social) of breaches of natural law.…

Revises slightly the author's 1926 study of the same title (Oxford University Press), here adding two essays, also previously published: "Destiny in Troilus and Criseyde" (1930) and "Arcite's Intellect" (1930). The enlarged edition also updates the…

The first two chapters of this book look at the Knight and KnT in the context of the "heroic life." The Allegory of Rule and the Allegory of Love offer ways to understand Palamon and Arcites's fight in the wood. The second two chapters examine the…

Biblical analogies embedded in KnT constitute an implied critique of the pre-Christian setting: Palamon and Arcite's first sight of Emelye accords with David's first sight of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:2); loving Emelye reorganizes Arcite's psyche and…

Curtis summarizes the 1944 movie "A Canterbury Tale," gauging its successes and failures and commenting on the extent to which its sensibilities might be called "Chaucerian."

In KnT, the medieval view of the deficiencies of classical ideals is demonstrated through the tacit presence of Christianity. In its light, the ancient order breaks down; thus, KnT fills a significant place in CT as Christian pilgrimage.

An "earthscape of renewals and pilgrimages," CT is chiefly incarnational and pluralistic, with four exceptions. As pious tales with separate value structures and terms of reference differing from the GP principle of "purifying, abstracting and…

Explores the differences between PardP and PardT--differences in genre, atmosphere, and temporal dimension--arguing that they are part of the Pardoner's efforts to manipulate his audience. Contrasts the self-interested, time-bound play of the…

Reads WBPT (with attention to the GP description of the Wife) as a "crucial example" of the way Chaucer "sees the relation between deception and self-deception" and a "median" among the Canterbury pilgrims as a gauge of hypocrisy. Balanced between…

The manners in which the Miller, Summoner, and Manciple tell their tales are evidence of Chaucer's interest in the psychology of class conflict. The social events of medieval England and Chaucer's own situation reflect class issues.

Argues that training in stylistics has benefits for teachers, putting forward a pattern for what a training course might look like. Chaucer is invoked as a subject of study by a student respondent.

Chaucer's characterization of the Prioress mirrors the struggle of "a country bumpkin trying to upgrade herself." The St. Loy of her oath might best be identified with St. Louis IX, King of France. The Bell edition of 1890 cites St. Loy as the…

Suggests a link between KnT and MkT: Saturn's "children" can be either individuals born under the sign of Saturn or societies suffering the effects of the "Age of Saturn." The predicament of the Monk's Hugelyn and his children can be read in light of…

In PrT, uncanniness and the eventual wounding of the clergeon are necessary to render the clergeon holy and Christlike. His experience is close to that represented in miracle plays exploring the Slaughter of the Innocents.

Compares the "theatricality of imagery" in MLT, particularly in Constance's prayer to the Virgin (2.841-54), with the Polish Marian crucifixion lament "Listen, Dear Brothers." Includes an English translation of the Polish lyric.

Although the SqT draws on missionary accounts of Mongol culture in which religion and magic, the "holy" and the "unholy," are seen as confused, the Tale itself treats magic as something manmade, a technological marvel, eliciting admiration and…

Considers the body of the "Other" in various medieval romances. Chapter 1, "Ethnic Difference and Body Marvelous: the Case of Chaucer's 'Squire's Tale' and Sir Ferumbras," focuses on how SqT highlights Canace's ethnicity as a space for fantasy.…

Assesses representation of the mothers-in-law in MLT and their equivalent in the BBC adaptation, where the mother-in-law is of Iranian origin, but looks on Custance from a highly racist perspective.

Chaucer's dream poems reflect the self-consciousness of "mise en abyme"--literally, "setting of the abyss"--used here to identify Chaucer's means of drawing attention to structural and thematic circularity and to poetics. …

Surveys medieval literary uses of "mise en abyme" and assesses how the interpolated tales of NPT break up the linear narrative and produce a "mise en abyme" effect. The contrasting structures of NPT and MkT parallel the contrast between text and…

William Blake's painting "The Canterbury Pilgrims" and his commentary on it in a "Descriptive Catalog" (1809) are a "complex allegory of life, where the classicist belief in the imitation of nature is thoroughly discarded." Blake returns to a…

Chaucer's four dream poems, especially PF and LGWP (both the F and G versions) are sources of Dunbar's "Golden Targe," although Dunbar's imagery owes much to CT, Anel, and Rom. Dunbar seeks innovation within tradition, and the praise he bestows on…

In TC, Troilus's melancholic character and his intense intellectual activity--a topos reminiscent of the first of Pseudo-Aristotle's thirty "problemata" in "Problemata Physica," according to which all men of genius are melancholy--are especially…