Browse Items (16471 total)

In BD Chaucer skillfully breaks with French poetic practice to produce a new kind of poetry. The enigmatic narrator does not participate in established conventions; an insomniac amateur reader, he does not fully understand the matter he presents.

Critics differ in their assessment of the structure and the nature of the consolation in BD. Chaucer uses juxtaposition as his structural principle. The consolation is Boethian, transcending the intensity of human grief, but Chaucer insists upon…

BD's central theme is that change is necessary and inevitable and must be graciously accepted. Initially the Black Knight avoids change; by the end of BD he is reconciled with, and embraces, change. In BD, Chaucer succeeds in his portrayal of…

The narrator's eight-year sickness may refer to the last illness of Henry, Duke of Lancaster. The portrait of Lady White departs significantly from that of Machaut's lady in "Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne" to reconcile courtly with Christian love.

Reconciles Wimsatt's other writings on BD--one emphasizing the closeness of BD to fourteenth-century French love poetry, the other studying the religious significance of the poem in the context of Christian tradition--which produce quite different…

Far from being "entirely tropological" or imaginative, the descriptions of the Temple of Venus and the House of Fame and Rumor accurately reflect the forms and details of contemporary structures. As Clerk of the Works and perhaps an acquaintance of…

HF classifies memory as an aspect of Prudence, as reflected in its three-part structure and reinforced by its thematic meditation on fame. GP portraits develop with details of "artificial" memory, as do the pilgrimage itself and the game. KnT…

In having the Eagle retell the story of Phaethon from Ovid and from medieval interpretations of Ovid, Chaucer oversimplifies and creates conflicts or deficiencies of meaning; this allusive and contradictory treatment of literary tradition in HF…

Just as the theme of memory pervades HF, so Chaucer's recounting of the "Aeneid" in book 1 begins with both detail and accuracy and ends in hasty paraphrase. Chaucer's lines 143-48 translate the opening sentence of the "Aeneid" accurately, save for…

Chaucer's address to Thought in the Invocation to book 2 stresses the function of memory in his art. Love tidings are words from old books. Books are still the activator of new poems, even though "auctorite" may be enriched by "experimentum." The…

Some characteristics of the legend of Philomene, Phyllis, and Hypermnestra are discussed. The brief conclusion proves that the poet's attitude toward LGW is ambivalent; he seems to be mocking, satirical, and at the same time serious and even…

In LGW, Chaucer suppressed most of the Cleopatra tradition (asps, etc.) to make her a medieval "good woman," who builds a shrine for Anthony and enters a snake pit to dramatize the grave-worm "topos." Alceste transcends the grave--the thematic…

It has been argued that the poem exhibits multiplicity and disharmony, though the poet shows a commitment to traditional forms of culture. There is no such commitment in PF. The multiplicity of authority and the "continuous self-reflexivity" does…

Although Charles d'Orleans first described an actual Valentine's Day lottery, it was apparently Chaucer who, in PF and Mars, first associated Saint Valentine's Day with love, both in its ornithological simplicity and in its human complexity. His…

Essays by various hands. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Literary and Historical Perspectives of the Middle Ages under Alternative Title.

Distinguishing the process of allegory from the nature of allegoresis, Chaucer deallegorizes his sources. He addresses not a reader but an "auditor," who is not asked to judge his own interpretive procedures. Jean de Meun defends the use of slang…

Unlike his earlier dream visions, Chaucer's PF exhibits no structural confusion. Rather, the poet poses the possibility of variable pluralisms and leaves the poem inconclusive. The narrator is relatively uninvolved in the action, which permits…

The poem's central interest lies in the attempt by two human souls to establish the deepest and most testing of relationships. The representation of this relationship involves more than a dialogue: it insinuates a dialectical process that worries…

Although the tree-vine "topos" with which Chaucer describes the embrace of Troilus and Criseyde is a literary commonplace, it usually describes a relationship that is either destructive or supportive. In TC the "topos" is ambiguous and highlights…

Middle English "beere" could mean "bear," "bier," or "pillow." The first of these is impossible in the context of TC 2.1638, but both other meanings are probably there: Pandarus ironically foreshadows Troilus's death, and he also foresees the hero…

Comparison of Chaucer's poem with Boccaccio's reveals the narrator in conflict with the story as Chaucer himself both came into conflict with the ideas and ideals represented and also understood his role as poet. As lovers are seduced by a seemingly…

Extrinsic models for twelfth-century audiences of chivalric romances (Duly, Bezzola, Legge) should be complemented by indirect evidence that defines such audiences as literary virtuosos, humanists able to evaluate romances to discover the poet and…

Numerology is an aesthetic basis for TC. The architectural metaphor of Geoffrey of Vinsauf and Euclid's theorem on proportion in triangles can be used to demostrate proportions (involving line numbers) in TC.

Inconsistencies are found in the poems, in the tone of the narrator, and in the discrepancy between the comic mode of TC and the seriousness of the conclusion. The design of the poem either "employs inconsistency and incongruity, or conversely is…