Browse Items (16381 total)

Gauges William Caxton's appreciation of Chaucer's literature by exploring why Caxton printed the works of Chaucer that he did, how he treated the texts, and to what extent his decisions reflect his own tastes or those of patrons, poets, and the likes…

Focusing on the exemplum of Ceyx and Alcyone in BD, illustrates Chaucer's "early use of multiple sources in close alternating sequence," discussing source relations with Machaut, Froissart, Virgil, Ovid, Statius, the "Ovide Moralise," and the "Roman…

Argues that in BD Chaucer "heavily inlays the Black Knight's long description of his lady with imagery of the Blessed Virgin" and "that the effect produced by such imagery is an apotheosis not inconsonant with the traditional apotheosis of the…

Offers the "tempting hypothesis" that Adenet le Roi's "Berte aud Grans Pies" is a source of the "coincidence of . . . three motifs" in GP ("pilgrimage, spring, framing device"); also observes several "interesting verbal similarities" between the two.

Explores free will in Mars, KnT, TC, and CT, focusing on the relative balance of astrological determinism and character complexity. The "compulsions of astrology" in Mars are lessened in KnT, replaced by the "searching" for examples of providence in…

Interprets the allusion to Pygmalion in PhyT (6.7-18) as an indication of Apius's "concupiscence," drawing on depictions of Pygmalion in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose."

Compares and contrasts the characterizations of Calkas in the Troy stories of Guido, Benoit, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, arguing that in TC he is depicted so as to ridicule "astrology-prophetism" even while contributing to the poem's "atmosphere of…

Explores parallels of plot and detail found in "Pamphilus de Amore" (or "Pamphilus and Galatee"), "aspects" of the "Roman de la Rose," "parts" of Juan Ruiz's "Libro de Buen Amor," and the first three books of TC, demonstrating that the "'Pamphilus'…

Surveys the status of the complaint as a formal genre in classical and in medieval French, Provencal, Italian, and English traditions as background to discussing Chaucer's uses of the genre in BD, TC, Mars, and elsewhere. Focuses on Chaucer's…

Describes the Franklin's grasping "imitation of noble ways" in FranPT and in his GP description. The genre and rhetoric of the Tale are outdated, absurd, and/or obtrusive, while its depictions of ideals of marriage, gentility, and patience are either…

Attributes the aesthetic success of the three-rioters account in PardT to Chaucer's suggestive "economy" of characterization and narrative and to the double perspective ("drunken fantasy" and "sober calculation") that irrevocably leads to death,…

Identifies an analogue to the pear-tree episode in MerT, a folktale entitled "Women Always Get Away With It," first published in Puerto Rico in 1915-16 but evidently part of oral tradition.

Debunks tendencies in Chaucer criticism to read "too much into the text," identifying and exemplifying the "realistic fallacy," the "anachronistic fallacy," the "schematic fallacy," the "ideological fallacy," the "didactic fallacy," the "allegorical…

Suggests that -- in light of details of Chaucer's career and of medieval chess-playing -- the significance of "fers" in BD 741 may be "threefold," referring to Blanche, to the chess piece, and to "Chaucer himself, the commoner promoted from pawn to…

Comments on the sentimental charm of PrT that conflicts with its narrator's "hatred of the Jews," and upon the combination of "touching sentiment" and "mechanical" rhetoric in MLT. Then considers the "poignant emotion" and pathos of ClT as they help…

Argues that Pandarus is "honorable and well-intentioned in each of his three roles" in TC: traditional friend to Troilus, courtly friend to Troilus, and protective and loving kinsman to Criseyde. Chaucer's efforts to "knit together" these sometimes…

Discusses PardPT as a "dramatic monologue, in the form of a sermon," set within a "'fabliau' framework." Identifies the various parts of the sermon structure and explains similarities between the "framework" and Chaucer's other fabliaux, particularly…

Explores the ambiguities of betting terminology and suggests that Pardarus's use of such terminology in TC 4.622 means that he is urging Troilus generally to "take his chances."

Contends that parallels between the "sacrifices" in FranT and two analogous ones found in Jean Froissart's "Chroniques" 2.137-38 encourage us to see the offer of the Franklin's magician to be illusory and worthless while Arveragus's offer of the…

Explores Middle English examples of the word "wombe" to suggest that it may mean genitals as well as belly in MerT 4.2414.

Comments on various aspects of KnT and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (sources, dates, verse forms, etc.), discussing most extensively their uses of rhetorical devices. Finds KnT to be inferior because in it "form dictates to matter" and because…

Explores the "really profound difference" between the Reeve and the Miller, commenting on the Miller's rich characterizations in MilT and the vitality and "kind of justice" that underlies the outcome of his Tale. RvT, conversely, is an unwholesome…

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…

Reads WBT psychoanalytically, exploring its "sexual taboos," its phallic and vaginal significations, and the sexual fantasy that is "at the heart of the story." The tension between authority and submission in the Tale conveys meaning equally well for…

Contrasts the climactic love scenes in Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" and in TC, considering details, omissions, emphases, and narrative perspectives to argue that Chaucer makes the scene "emotionally, and indeed sexually, more intense" without being…