Davis, Norman,and Douglas Gray, Patricia Ingham, and Anne Wallace-Hadrill.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.
A glossary based largely on the Tatlock and Kennedy "Concordance." It does not go beyond A of Rom, nor does it cover the "Equatorie." Different meanings are cited by line references; etymologies are provided; there is a useful introductory note on…
Davis, Norman.
Geoffrey Chaucer: Conferenze Organizzate dall'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Collaborazione con la British Academy (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1977), pp. 3-22.
Surveys opinions about Chaucer's diction from John Lydgate to G. K. Chesterton and explores the French elements in the vocabulary of his love poetry, along the way commenting on relations between Chaucerian and Chancery diction, the "texture of…
Davis, Norman.
Review of English Studies 20 (1969): 43-50.
Describes the contents of a page in Nottingham University Library, MS ME LM 1, that includes a "genuine witness" to Gent and several English and Latin proverbs,; also shows that the version of Gent in Cambridge University Library Gg. 4.27.1b "has no…
Davis, Norman.
Leeds Studies in English 1 (1967): 7-17.
Demonstrates the "conventional and unspontaneous elements in the language" of early English letter-writing, citing examples from the Paston letters, Cely letters, Stonor letters, etc., and discussing how phrasing reflects earlier literary usage,…
Davis, Norman.
Review of English Studies 16, no. 63 (1965): 233-44.
Considers Chaucer's modifications in Troilus's letter (TC 5.1317-1421) of Boccaccio's original in "Filostrato" and of Beauvau's French translation in "Roman de Troyle et de Criseida," arguing that the changes reflect late-medieval English…
Davis, P. J., ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
The introduction to this edition of Valerius includes a section on "The Later Middle Ages: Benoit, Guido, Chaucer, and Boccaccio," discussing whether or not "medieval writers were familiar with Valerius Flaccus." Demonstrates that, although Chaucer…
Davis, Paul.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Davis surveys the aesthetics and politics of works by "Augustan poet-translators," including a description of William Cartwright's comments on Francis Kynaston's translation of TC into Latin and an analysis of the modernizations and adaptations of…
A pendant is usually conjectured to be a "penner," a pencase, emblematic of the poet's profession. It is, however, more likely to be an ampulla, a lead vial supposedly containing blood from the martyr of Saint Thomas of Canterbury.
Davis, Rebecca.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 37 (2015): 101-32
Argues that motion in HF is "not the antithesis to form but its condition of possibility." Water imagery links Boethian "enclynyng," the littoral "field of sand" that signals transition between Books I and II, and the eel-trap shape of the House of…
Davis, Rebecca.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Presents Chaucer's and Langland's representations of the natural world, reading "Langland's treatment of nature alongside Chaucer's as an expression of a continuous though diverse tradition of humanism." Chapter 1 focuses on nature in PF.
Davis, Rebecca.
In Jamie C. Fumo, ed. Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess": Contexts and Interpretations (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018), pp. 51-69.
Examines the "metafictional import of sleep," as distinct from dreaming, in BD. Influenced by Machaut's "Livre de la fonteinne amoreuse," BD aligns sleep, as an embodied process, with the "werk" of elegy.
Davis, Rebecca.
New Medieval Literatures 23 (2023): 179-218.
Assesses "self-referential reflections on storytelling" in MLT and Mel, focusing on how the "resistive narrative agency" of their female protagonists calls attention to "questions central to the literary enterprise itself," particularly through…
Davis, Stephen Brian.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 1154A.
Both the historical basis for BD and its relation to Machaut's narratives have posed problems, but the dream-vision form can resolve them. Whereas Machaut used it to divide himself from his patrons, Chaucer employed it to indicate their "shared…
Chaucer uses the conventions of Machaut in BD to undermine them, demonstrating to his English readers that the French poetic tradition was two-dimensional, "narrow in scope and appeal, read primarily for diversion and reflection."
Davis, Walter R.
David A. Richardson, ed. Spenser: Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern (Cleveland State University, 1977), pp. 84-91. [Microfiche available from the Department of English.]
Disagrees with Carol Barthel's assertion that Spenser derived Prince Arthur's dream of the Fairy Queen from Chaucer's Thop, but argues that, in completing SqT in Book 4 of "The Faerie Queene," Spenser encourages his readers to seek allegorical…
Davlin, Mary Clemente, O.P.
Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith, ed. William Langland's Piers Plowman: A Book of Essays (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 119-41.
Chaucer and Langland are both "great religious writers," although Langland is more deeply engaged in "who and what God is." Both writers are poets of religious experience: Chaucer explores pathos, and Langland confronts the "central beliefs of…
Dawkins, Richard.
Boston and New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Dawkins uses the frame-and-tale structure of CT to organize a series of excurses on evolution and the development of biological life. Recurrent references to Chaucer and CT, with brief discussion on evolutionary biology as a model in the Canterbury…
The open-ended frame of CT derives ultimately from Indo-European rather than Arabic aesthetic; Arabic influence on medieval Europe is nonetheless significant.
Dawson, Robert B.
Chaucer Review 26 (1992): 293-308.
Rather than a pious and sympathetic character, Custance is an egocentric, self-serving individual who depicts herself as a saintly victim. Thus, she is linked to her creator, the Man of Law, whose language is both deceptive and complex.
Daye, Mary Louise.
Dissertation Abstracts International 29.02 (1968): 563-64A.
Surveys rhetorical criticism of Chaucer, exploring medieval and modern concepts of rhetoric, and assesses the "interruption by a pilgrim of his own narrative" in SqT, ManT, MerT, and NPT for the ways that such interruptions help to characterize the…
De Gaynesford, Maximilian.
Peter Robinson, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 617-37.
Explores poetic speech acts (following the lead of J. L. Austin), treating Chaucer's dedication of his book in TC 5.1856-62 as an exemplary type of performative speech act--"the Chaucer-Type"--characterized by having three explicit constitutive…
De Gaynesford, Maximilian.
In The Rift in the Lute: Attuning Poetry and Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 119-33.
Revises and expands De Gaynesford's essay "Speech Acts, Responsibility, and Commitment in Poetry" (2013), which identifies a type of poetic performative speech-act that he labels the "Chaucer-type," explaining it by reference to the poet's dedication…
De Hamel, Christopher.
[London]: Allen Lane, 2016; New York: Penguin, 2017.
Discusses twelve notable medieval manuscripts, recounting personal encounters with each in its library setting, emphasizing aesthetic appreciation, illustrations, and the exigencies of provenances, while including codicological descriptions and…
