Browse Items (16381 total)

Argues that Chaucer's adaptations of Italian literature are better regarded as intertextual rewritings than as translations, particularly in instances where he fuses materials from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Comments on portions of TC, HF, Anel,…

Argues that Chaucer produced Mel to demonstrate his allegiance to Richard II and to challenge the Appellants. Mel deconstructs the advice of Prudence, whose "advisory coup" echoes the Appellants' takeover.

Using postcolonial theory, events of the 100 Years' War, and speculations about Chaucer's war experiences, Bowers analyzes Chaucer's literary productions--from his early translations from French through LGW--as a reaction against French literary…

Reprints Clouston's two-volume work (1887), with its original Introduction and Index, commentary on the brass steed of SqT, and chapter entitled "Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale'" (pp. 490-511) that traces the sources and analogues of the Tale. Adds an…

Includes six newly published essays. For individual essays, search for New Views on Chaucer under Alternative Title.

Exemplifies a variety of "inconsistencies and discontinuities" in Chaucer's works, particularly CT, presenting them as typical of the poet's "Gothic" aesthetics and consistent with contemporaneous art and the "complex cultural pluralism" of his age,"…

Explains why Eustace Deschamps considered Chaucer to be the "grant translateur" of French into English by detailing the general and specific ways in which Chaucer imitated and emulated three of his French predecessors. As the "archetype" of the love…

Clarifies various difficulties in determining "how much classical Latin literature" Chaucer knew and details his relative familiarity with works by Cicero, Livy, Cato, Lucan, Statius, Claudian, Virgil, and Ovid. Chaucer was little influenced by…

Part 1 traces the influences of Bernard Silvestris and Alan of Lille on Chaucer's works, focusing on themes of fatalism (in MLT), cosmic ascent (in HF) and hierarchy and nature (in PF). Regards Alan's influence as "profound," especially in PF, and…

Argues that medieval Latin satiric writers such as Nigel of Longchamps and Walter of Châtillon contributed to the "essential nature" of Chaucer's "poetic imagination." In WBP, NPT, and elsewhere, Chaucer capitalizes on the satiric potential…

Surveys evidence of the likelihood that Chaucer learned Italian from "Lombards" (especially members of the Bardi family) who were living in London and involved in affairs of trade and banking. Demonstrates how Chaucer adapted his Italian literary…

Approximates the parameters of Chaucer's knowledge and acceptance of medieval science, pseudo-science, and occult practice by surveying their presence in his works, including discussions of astronomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, physiognomy, etc. His…

Surveys the range of religious and philosophical concerns and attitudes of late fourteenth-century England, and gauges Chaucer's investment in them. More moral than dogmatic, Chaucer "never discloses his commitment in religion" and "offers few…

Describes the importance of mental images to medieval understanding of cognition and memory, and clarifies the importance of such images to understanding Chaucer's works as iconographical poems. Meaning inheres in such images and enables both…

Descriptive survey of major developments in Chaucer criticism and scholarship, treated historically and sub-divided into eight categories: 1) canon, 2) texts, 3) language and versification, 4) biography, 5) learning, 6) sources, 7)…

Characterizes Chaucer's world as "lightly peopled," mobile, in economic transition, and hierarchical; characterizes Chaucer as economically successful, relatively untouched by tumultuous events, entertaining, modest, and with "a foot in several…

Accompanies Benson's discursive "Reader's Guide to Chaucer," included in the same volume (pp. 321-51). Lists selected "critical and scholarly works" (some lightly annotated), and indicates with an asterisk works that are "especially suitable for…

Comments on the limited impact of Chaucer's prose on later tradition, and explores the stylistic dexterity of his verse in light of contemporary linguistic features: his use of open and close vowels in rhyme and the impact of rhyme on his diction;…

Describes the editorial practices necessary to produce a modern edition of Chaucer's works, commenting on spelling, punctuation (especially virgules), meter (especially final -e), and distinguishing scribal and authorial forms. Summarizes the number…

Reviews Chaucer's use of Benoit's "Roman de Troie," as well as romance "type-scenes," gestures, ritual, narrating voice, and motifs of secrecy.

Characterizes several differences between the archaic (prescientific) and modern mindsets: literal vs. relative, oral vs. literate, mythic vs. scientific. Includes a brief discussion of Chaucer's mixture of the two.

Chaucer uses the anti-Semitism of PrT to depict pernicous innocence.

The grounds for "best-text" editing are uncertain. In following a "best-text," an editor may seek to "place the modern audience in the position" of the Ur-audience. Hanna questions Hengwrt as basis for "best text" and Manly-Rickert's method of…

Reviews the development of CT editing from 1960 onward. The "Variorum is designed to control and reassess secondary literature and to test Manly-Rickert (very reliable). Rejects Manly-Rickert's theory of early versions of CT and ClT. Reviews…

In editing Chaucer, the problem of the final "-e" can be resolved "in a conservative edition by retaining the spelling of the base manuscript and in a modernised edition by regularising it." Cowen and George Kane, editors of LGW (in progress), treat…