Browse Items (16376 total)

Analyzes the "organization and assumptions" of four medieval rhetorical handbooks, focusing on their "methods of amplification," and assesses the influence of rhetorical tradition on the characterizations in TC, in comparison with those of Boccaccio…

Includes comments on the lack of remorse among the Jews in PrT.

Studies English/Flemish relations and Chaucer's contact with the Low Countries as a diplomat and as Controller of Customs, gauging the extent to which this contact affected his fiction in SqT, MerT, and WBP, and the ways that his "realism" can be…

Considers lyric poems "not as statements but as imitation of statements," and includes discussion of the "Brooch of Thebes" (i.e., Chaucer's Mars and Ven). Also comments on Chaucer's relations with Eustace Deschmaps and Oton de Grandson.

Includes chapters on Benoît, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson, Shakespeare, and Dryden, treating Chaucer's Criseyde as "the most delightful of them all"--a character of "infinite complexity and infinite charm."

Identifies a "consistent pattern" in Chaucer's works of comparing "the songs and melodies of lovers to sacred and philosophical medieval musics," religious and astronomical. Examines concord and discord in musical references in KnT, PF, ManT, TC,…

Psychoanalytic exploration of the "fantasy-structure" of MLPT, arguing that medieval and modern audiences "would have similar unconscious responses to the text." Suggests a similar, broader reading of all of CT.

Reads PF in light of its sources as an allegory of aristocratic responsibility for maintaining natural law and a just society; KnT as an exploration of lawlessness set against the background of Status's "Thebaid," focusing on the tournament; and the…

Considers TC to be "amphibious," both a tragedy and, ironically, a comedy, when read in light of Chaucer's changes to Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and his additions from Boethius's "Consolatio."

Includes discussion (pp. 206-27) of the ways in which WBPT are antithetical in tone and detail to various treatises that treat virginity as a standard of perfection: "Hali Meidenhad," Innocent III's "De Miseria Humane Conditionis," and Jerome's…

Seeks to identify the "Latin manuscript closest to Chaucer's source for his translation" of Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy'," examining features and variants in manuscripts of Boethius's treatise.

"[I]nvestigates Chaucer's artistic and philosophical debt to the poetic tradition stemming from the twelfth-century School of Chartres," exploring Chaucer's sources and considering the (neo)platonic concerns in BD, HF, PF, and CT.

Describes the shifts in perspective and changes in the point of view of the narrator in TC, arguing that they guide the reader to the outlook that concludes the poem, particularly through allusions to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

Evaluates twenty of Chaucer's standalone lyric poems, considering their prosodic features, poetic qualities, and representations of various "aspects of experience."

Psychological analysis of six of the Canterbury pilgrims (Knight, Man of Law, Narrator [in Mel], Pardoner, Clerk, and Second Nun, followed by "six recreations" in prose that attempt to project the characters as modern storytellers.

Examines the methods and results of Thomas Tyrwhitt's editing of Part 1 of CT, focusing on his notes and glossary.

Rejects the traditional three-part structure of HF and assesses the "structural function of its two juxtaposed narratives," i.e., the summary of Virgil's "Aeneid" and the journey, considering the poem's relation with Dante's "Divine Comedy, the…

Identifies a traditional, idealized, Christian view of marriage in CT: GP, KnT, MilT, RvT, WBPT, ClT, MLT, Mel, MerT, FranT, NPT, ManT, and ParsT.

Distinguishes between "natural" astronomy and "judicial" astronomy, gauges astronomical knowledge in Chaucer's age, describes Chaucer's uses of astrology, and considers effeorts to date Chaucer's works by astronomical references.

Argues that HF "shows a firm and symmetrical pattern" in its thematic and stylistic balancing of Book 1 and the house of Fame, on the one hand, and Book 2 and the house of Rumor on the other.

Studies the range and nature of Chaucer's influence on the writing of William Dunbar, arguing that it is pervasive.

Studies the tradition of rhetorical "occupatio" and Chaucer's uses of the device in BD, HF, LGW, TC, and KnT.

Edits the Constance portion of Trevet's "Cronicles," with discussion of Trevet's life and works, manuscripts of his work, a table of variants,and related materials. Includes (pp. 181-217) discussion of Chaucer's use of this source in MLT.

Surveys the literary and philosophical backgrounds of fortune, nature, and grace, and assesses their roles in CT, with particular attention to PhyT, PardT and the unity of Part 6. Includes an appendix that explores nineteen analogues to PardT

Studies commentaries on the biblical Song of Songs written before the sixteenth century, and explores the motif of spiritual marriage in various literary works, including works by Chaucer.