Browse Items (16381 total)

Exemplifies Chaucer's "homely vocabulary" and "naturalistic choice of words," identifying roots in both French and native English, and commenting on instances of idiomatic phrases, rogues' speech, "zesty vocabulary," "oaths and imprecations," sexual…

Connects the "Tale of Gamelyn" to Chaucer with respect to concerns of class, legal, and cultural issues, and focuses on the theme of vulnerability as an important conceit of the poem.

One scribe included the "Tale of Beryn" in his copy of CT. The Prologue presents Chaucer's pilgrims after they arrive at Canterbury, and the tale is appropriate to its teller, a merchant. Argues that the "Beryn" author was "an intelligent and…

Given his "frequent equivocalness" on matters of high seriousness, there is good reason to believe that Prov, a "riddling poem" (NIMEV 3914), is Chaucer's work, philologists' objections on the basis of its inaccurate "compace"/"embrace" rhyme…

Examines the use of "daunce" in TC in order to explore the way dancing is linked to rhetoric in the interactions between the main characters.

Argues that Perez Galdos's "El amigo Manso" (1882) echoes TC in its concern with philosophical consolation, the theme of kinds of knowledge, and the narrator protagonist's mocking of his mourners in the afterlife. Like Troilus, Manso is an idealistic…

Considers medieval understandings of the relationship between attention and distraction or diversion, using several texts, ranging from Augustine to Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, and TC.

Based on Nakao's earlier book, "The Structure of Chaucer's Ambiguity" (2004; in Japanese), this republished English version analyzes the "parole aspect of language" within an expanded study of ambiguity in TC. Proposes an original theoretical…

Argues that Chaucer's interpretation of Boethius, as shown in two key passages in TC, his translation of Bo, and a significant Bo manuscript, "enables him to present Troilus as a genuinely Boethian hero who channels philosophical insight into…

Considers the connection between ethics and emotional response in several Middle English texts, including TC.

Focusing on TC, argues that Chaucer relied heavily on previous works, primarily Dante's "Divina commedia," for theological and linguistic direction. Contends that Chaucer, like Dante, does not merely regurgitate biblical narratives, but expands on…

Compares TC with Boccaccio's "Il filostrato" and points out there are two kinds of death for Troilus in TC, as well as salvations in the Chaucer and Boccaccio texts. Traces the continuity of the theme of death from TC to CT. In Japanese, with English…

Contends that masculine obsession with interiority, especially that marked by courtly love, enables "powerful men to ignore the destructive public consequences of their political" actions. Yet, TC reveals "that such separation between the public and…

Examines the parallels between Cresseid and the narrator showing Cresseid's eventual transformation while the narrator fails to understand the moral point. Includes comments on Chaucer's narrator in TC.

Examines how uses of "sooth" characterize the three main actors in TC. Claims that Chaucer's use "of sooth" also "produces tension" in TC.

Thomas Spencer, a scrivener, purportedly owned a copy of TC in 1394. Presents the historical record regarding Spencer's life, since if this claim is true, it represents the only recorded instance of one of Chaucer's works circulating during his…

Notes that the visual imagery of falling rocks and millstones Pandarus uses to convince Troilus of his future success is associated with death and destruction in the Bible, which actually undermines Pandarus's argument in TC.

Argues that Rom should be recontexualized, viewing the work not as a Chaucerian fragment, which perpetuates a fragmentary approach to the work, but as part of a tradition of translation. Analysis of decorated initials and borders in Hunter 409…

Contends that PF challenges the medieval idea of judgment, based in reason, by also taking into account affective forces.

As part of a consideration of censorship, subjects several works, including PF, to a hypothetical "model of intolerance" based on Abelard, Ockham, and John of Salisbury.

Discusses "the narrator's rhetoric of pity," alluding to Augustine, Aristotle, Cicero, and others, while arguing that both pity and poetry involve "a kind of authentic inauthenticity" that is unstable, paradoxical, and contingent in LGW.

Focuses on the legend of Dido in LGW and compares its representation of Dido in Virgil's "Aeneid," Ovid's "Heroides," and HF. Argues that Dido in LGW desires Aeneas more actively than in other versions and that LGW presents her positively as…

Uses HF, among other texts, to demonstrate a versatile permeability between "science and the humanities" in the medieval period, in contrast to current more isolated approaches to these disciplines.

Reads HF as an example of how a literary work constructs "discursive scale," making us self-conscious about how we read and interpret, when we read closely, and when we distance ourselves and see the text in relation to genres and systems, history,…

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…