Browse Items (16376 total)

Uses Chaucer, Spenser, Homer, Virgil, and Bunyan as test specimens in the presentation of allegory as a vision of superimposed frames of reference.

Treats medieval tragedy as a combination of the tragedy of fortune and the potential for tragedy of damnation, surveying antecedent traditions and exploring each of the four poems of the title. Reads TC as a poem that fuses both views of tragedy, and…

Explores use of temporality ("the experience of living in time") in CT and Gower's "Confessio Amantis," suggesting that CT is present-centered and considers the relationship of past to present, while Gower "focuses on the present as it becomes the…

Uses ABC, Hoccleve's "Complaint of the Virgin Before the Cross," and other sources to outline a mutually reinforcing relationship between the Lancastrians (orthodox supporters of the Church) and the Church (which allied with the Lancastrians).

Considers WBPT and SNPT, along with woman writers of the 13th-15th centuries, as part of the development of a female "subject consciousness." Also examines Grisilde in ClT.

Considers TC, MilT and MerT as part of an examination of the role of secret intermediaries and seclusion in the apparatus of courtly love.

Examines the early editions of Chaucer (Caxton-Speght), and argues that editorial direction may have led to an emphasis on Chaucer's moral "gravitas," at the expense of attention to his comedic aspects. The reception of those texts, in turn, may have…

Arguing for the prominence of the Biblical account of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in medieval culture, the author observes the presence of children as sacrificial figures in MkT, PrT, PhyT, MLT, and ClT, and notes the rewards of faith in those…

Uses KnT as a sample premodern text to support a critical approach "equally as concerned with literary ideals as it is with projects of subversion."

Deploys Chaucer as part of an examination of the use of the Trojan/Brutus myth in British national historiography.

Suggests parallels between medieval literature and African-American literature, with particular attention to Layamon and August Wilson (stories of origin), Gloria Naylor's "Linden Hills" and Dante (a suppressive desire for harmony), and Naylor's…

Contemplates issues of determinism and free will in KnT and WBPT. KnT is viewed as "deterministic," which in turn is countered by the Wife, as well as ClT and SNT.

In an effort to rehabilitate the medieval romance, argues that Th, when read through the prism of the Auchinleck MS, shows more affection for the form than is generally believed.

Looks at Tudor scholarship's role in the development and maintenance of Chaucer's fame and canonicity, with particular attention to Speght, Thynne, and post-Reformation views of Chaucer's work.

Examines HF and other medieval dream-visions from a stand-point of performance theory, while considering the role of the narrator/dreamer as perceiver and creator of meaning, with ramifications for how narrative may be viewed as process, rather than…

Examines "The King of Tars," "The Siege of Jerusalem," and KnT in order to demonstrate that identity, however embodied, was unfixed in these works and perhaps in the later Middle Ages at large.

Argues for the influence of the Eros and Psyche myth on Boccaccio's Griselda tale, and thereby on ClT.

Considers Chaucer and Lydgate's appropriations of medical discourse (as in GP and KnT) and their introduction of such discourse into the larger English literary culture, including the ramifications for the history of medicine in England.

As part of a larger discussion of changing paradigms of friendship, considers TC, along with Shakespeare, Milton, Lanyer, and others.

In the context of spheres of male and female acts of treason, suggests that women's disloyalty (e.g., Criseyde) was typically seen as simultaneously political and romantic, whereas a male traitor's action could be more easily compartmentalized, as in…

Considers the medieval interest in Boethius as a personal model as well as a literary influence, with particular regard to Usk's deployment of Boethius in an effort at self-justification and Hoccleve's connections between Boethius and Chaucer.

Suggests that Langland, Chaucer, and Gower represent political speech with the speech of animals, and argues that this device was later appropriated in anti-Ricardian discourse.

Examines authorial use of commonly heard sayings (e.g., proverbs) as a means of incorporating listeners into the rhetorical community formed by the audience.

Considers Chaucer's uses of seafaring imagery in the course of a larger discussion of the uses of the sea as religious metaphor.

Examines figures of women writers in the work of male authors from Chaucer to Marlowe, with the goal of recovering the woman writer's significance, even in the absence of female-authored direct texts. Includes discussion of TC and Philomela and Dido…