Browse Items (16377 total)

These poems from the University of Pennsylvania MS French 15 show what was happening to the pastourelle and serventois in France from 1300 to the time when Froissart began writing similar lyrics in London, before 1364.

Examines the cultural, social, economic, religious, and literary aspects of Italy in Chaucer's day.

In an effort to "historicize" Arthurian legend, Knight discusses the societies that "produced and consumed" various Arthurian works. Does not discuss works by Chaucer.

Although both Chaucer and Shakespeare inherited the classical misogynist tradition, their works reflect a belief in the equality of the sexes, the value of marriage, and the association of virtue with with women.

The editors claim "Z" (a proto-A), found only in the defective MS Bodley 851, to be the earliest version of "Piers Plowman." Introduction examines textual, linguistic, and codicological evidence; edition compares "Z" with "A."

Four Platonic "forms" infuse Chaucer's works: eating and drinking, sexuality and love, play and seriousness, and the making of art.

Ten essays on court culture in Chaucer's England. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages under Alternative Title.

Although fools hardly appear in Chaucer, in his own self-caricature the poet often plays the clown, as in CT and TC. Italian influence on Chaucer's comic vision is greater than that of the French "fabliaux."

2 vols.

The problem of ascertaining Chaucer's audience(s) is complex, running from the fictional one of GP to the real audiences of the poet's day to the audiences of the present.

Discusses Chaucer as poet of consolation, generosity, and love.

A limitation of the "dramatic" interpretation of CT is its focus upon pilgrims rather than tales. Th and Mel show contrasting narrative modes.

Treats CT in context of literary and social conventions of the age, discussing genre, ordering of CT, the diversity of pilgrims and genres in the tales, KnT, links within fragments, themes. CT does not accept the answers in ParsT and Ret, and…

Considers such words as "private" and the meanings that are concerned with private and public life, especially in WBT, SHT, MilT, and MerT.

Gitte's article in PMLA may indicate an "open-ended" quality of Chaucer's mind.

"Philosophical, Christian, rhetorical, and courtly traditions" provide bases for the morality and mirth of CT, especially NPT.

Treats the motif of wish-fulfillment in WBT, KnT, FranT.

Arabic literature--characteristically framed, open-ended, "eye-witness," first-person narrative, often including a journey--prefigures Boccaccio's "Decameron," Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and Chaucer's CT. Petrus Alfonsi's twelfth-century…

Frame narratives (Arabic in origin) display open-endedness, structural looseness, and autonomy of component tales. In CT, Chaucer combines Arabic, classical, and Christian elements and draws on their mutual tensions.

The "fragmentary state" of CT and its lack of definitive ending may reflect external circumstances, yet its "open-endedness" may be part of its structural plan.

Focuses on qualities that distinguish CT from the "Decameron:" the self-deprecating Chaucer persona, Chaucer's concern with human individuality, his willingness to admit the limitations of language and art, and his use of irony.

Sees astronomical ideas as literary devices in CT, analyzing Chaucer's use of astrological lore in satirizing the pilgrims.

Response to Gitte's article: the "open-endedness" of CT may result more from the unfinished state of CT than from Arabic tradition.

CT may be viewed as a "textual pilgrimage," for comprehension of the "text" of Christ.

Discrepancy between intention and outcome is a theme of CT, especially in KnT, WBT, and MerT. Pilgrim narrators produce unintended effects in listeners especially in the Host.