Browse Items (16472 total)

PF describes various aspects of love, but the continual shift of perspective works to supersede the previous interpretation in the following scene.

Challenges the traditional provenance of CT manuscript Oxford, Trinity College, MS 49, detaching it from Saffron Walden, and asserting that it was not donated to Trinity College by Sir Thomas Pope, founder of the college, but given by Thomas Unton,…

Describes conjunctions--"many of them improbable or curious"--among the materials contained in manuscripts "which preserve just one or two of Chaucer's short poems," exploring what they "can tell us about the reception and transmission of Chaucer's…

Explores Chaucer's use of romance conventions of the forest and the hunt. BD offers a particularly "artificial forest," reflecting the artifice of the work. In FrT, the forest is a kind of hell; in TC, the place of greatest freedom. WBT overturns…

Surveys Chaucers references to and possible knowledge of Homer, emphasizing mediating sources, especially Boccaccio.

Assesses the "depiction of women as ethical signifiers" in Chaucer's and Gower's writings, summarizing the "multilingual and transnational networks on which both poets draw," exploring the "ethical valences" of gender (especially feminine) in their…

Hanna discusses late medieval English "textual culture," commenting on the production and disposition of manuscripts, habits of collecting and anthologizing individual works, the vagaries of manuscript survival, reading practices, etc. Cites examples…

Comments on various aspects of dialect, diction, prestige, etc. in Middle English poetry, with many examples drawn from Chaucer's works.

Blamires introduces TC as Chaucer's "longest finished poem," commenting on sources, fusion of genres, suppleness of verse form and diction, the characters' sympathies, and the poem's "emotional trajectory."

Describes the nature and legacy of the dream vision genre and assesses Chaucer's four dream poems (BD, HF, PF, and LGW), exploring the dynamics of courtliness and learning, experience and authority, endings and implications,…

Introduces CT as the "epitome" of Chaucer's "literary experimentation," commenting on his social range, the unfinished nature of the work, and, especially, its generic variety--"romance, fabliau, beast-fable, saint's life, miracle story, sermon,…

Discusses the "living tradition" of Middle English poetry in later English culture, commenting on continuities, revivals, and imitations, with recurrent references to the status of Chaucer.

Considering the possibility that Gower "was the foremost poet of his age," Yeager contrasts the poetic powers of Gower and Chaucer and compares Gower's poetic techniques in "In Praise of Peace" and "Confessio Amantis" with Chaucer's techniques in CT.

Edwards cites the "pivotal" nature of the 1532 publication of John Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and Chaucer's "Werkes" and explores "Chaucerian modes and language" in fifteenth-century poetry by Hoccleve, Lydgate, Dunbar, and Henryson--a "subject that…

Boffey describes the nature and circulation of Middle English poetic manuscripts and early printed editions, with recurrent comments on manuscript production and traces of readers' responses. Draws examples from a wide variety of manuscripts and…

Chaucer transcended and transgressed the commonly accepted conventions of "romance": Th parodies the genre, while BD elevates its status by associating romance with classical works. Th, KnT, SqT, FranT, and WBT reflect a variety of approaches to…

Lynch explains the centrality of the legend of Troy to European narratives as a symbol of human instability and as a mirror of the present, especially in late medieval London. In comparison to its sources, TC keeps war on the periphery of the love…

Divided into three sections - "Politics and Discourse," "London Life and Chaucer's Poetry," and "Chaucer's Social Circle" - this essay surveys a variety of Chaucer's narratives and short poems, showing how they reflect urban and political elements in…

Saunders traces elements of Chaucer's "rarefied treatment of love" to Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, troubadours, trouvères, and Ovid, arguing that Chaucer developed a notion of "fin' amors" to treat philosophical questions as well as the…

Klassen deconstructs concepts of genre and romance and medieval definitions of tragedy as they pertain to TC. Analyzes Troilus's "double sorwe," references to romance within TC, and the significance of Chaucer's phrase "litel bok." The poem…

Ferster explores the importance of genre for understanding CT, a collection of different genres. Discusses how Chaucer stretches, plays with, and interrogates genre by combining features of genre and the expectations they create. Concentrates on the…

Green confronts "the interpretive function of morality in medieval literature" and discusses why Chaucer's "moral horizons" in CT are elusive. Many of the Tales include competing morals; frameworks such as estates satire and the seven deadly sins…

Cartlidge examines the range of attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and the family in CT - including questions of marriage as an ordering principle, sexuality as a threat to marriage, and sexuality as a form of aggression outside of marriage. Also…

Hirsh summarizes how religious concepts, contexts, and developments in the politico-religious situation in Ricardian and Lancastrian England bear on our understanding of CT. Discusses the Great Schism, pilgrimage, mysticism, and the shared themes of…

Fuller insists that sound is "intrinsic to meaning" in reading Chaucer, commenting on the importance of metrical patterns and syntactic structures, appropriate intonation and pace, and pronunciation of final -e. Although it is difficult to…