Browse Items (16471 total)

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…

Considers the use of baptism as a symbol and source of identity in CT.

Examines the vice of curiosity, arguing that Chaucer both expands its application from the realm of the intellectual to the realm of the physical, and suggests that poetry may be a cause and a remedy for the desire to inquire into private matters.…

Discusses the eremitical image of Chaucer promulgated by Shirley and Lydgate in the context of efforts to promote solitary, contemplative modes of life.

Using ClT and other texts, looks at the intersection of asceticism and secular lifestyles.

Examines how Astr, Bo, Mel, ParsT, and Ret can encourage readers to develop their own interpretive strategies and move towards autonomy.

Looks at confessional elements in works by Chaucer, Langland, Gower, Usk, and Hoccleve, ultimately arguing that such practice is central to an understanding of early English vernacular literature.

Contends that metaphors of hunting in TC and the alliterative "Morte Arthure" are intended for a noble audience, and in turn, they shape that audience's attention to ideas of love and chivalry.

Considers depictions of wilderness in GP and ManT, along with works by Gower and Langland, as metaphors for undisciplined rulers.

Arguing that translations may be used to shape and define community identities, considers MLT as an effort to establish a "multicultural English Christianity." Other examined texts include "Orosius" and Aelfric's "Lives of the Saints."

Argues that female bodies in CT represent texts that are unreadable by husbands, and suggests that ultimately, this is symptomatic of an impossibility of "cognitive seeking."

Suggests that texts like PrT might be taught by examining their presentation of non-followers of Christianity as monsters, an alternative to post-colonial approaches.

Reflects on secrecy and fear in confessional moments in several works, including TC.

In the course of examining relational aspects of author and audience, discusses humor in CT, particularly in MilT.

Compares LGW and Christine de Pizan's "Book of the City of Ladies" to Boccaccio's "Famous Women," arguing that Pizan's work is on equal footing with the other two texts.

Linking the idea of intention to the moral self in the medieval understanding of the subject, considers TC along with Margery Kempe and "The Testimony of William Thorpe."

Offers ShT as an example of how the use of fabliaux aids an understanding and exploration of marital dynamics, suggesting that the tale presents the merchant's marriage as a sort of economic contract between equals.

Examines HF in context of architectural descriptions in early English texts, and connects Chaucer's inspiration to an actual building in Westminster.