Browse Items (16350 total)

Challenges the theory that ShT was originally intended to be narrated by the Wife of Bath, and suggests a major emendation: moving lines 7.5-19 (which include first-person feminine pronouns) later in the tale and having them spoken by the merchant's…

Focuses on Chaucer's selection and arrangement of exempla drawn from Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" to argue that Dorigen's complaint (4.1367-456) is a "carefully shaped and molded passage of rhetoric designed to illuminate the character of Dorigen,…

Describes medieval coins referred to in Chaucer and other Middle English literature, particularly the florin, noble, 'écu' or shield, 'mouton d'or,' and ducat. Comments on the designs, values, and usage of these coins and corrects several…

Suggests that "traditions of witchcraft" are "the source of some of the language and . . . part of the motivation of the dispute" between the Friar and the Summoner, adducing late-medieval associations of friars and sorcery and the Summoner's diction…

Explores the symbolic value of the gems, their colors, and their settings (rings and brooch) in TC, discussing the moral implications referred to in medieval lapidaries.

Offers evidence that "embosed" in BD 352-53 means that the deer "had well concealed itself in a thicket and was not easy to find" and that the meaning of "double worstede" (Friar's cloak; GP 1.262) is worsted fabric of "considerable width."

Challenges L. G. Evans' suggestion that TC 4.1585 alludes to Matthew 10.39 (MLN, vol. 74), Baugh arguing that the phrasing is the same as in a common proverb, and Donaldson that the emendation underlying Evans' suggestion ("lyf" for "lief") is…

Describes Chaucer's metrical line as a "series of five iambs" and the beginning of "modern English verse," and provides examples from across Chaucer's corpus of dominant practices, variations in feet and line-lengths, rhyme patterns, and stanzas.…

Describes how the quarrel between the Friar and Summoner in WBP sets up the vituperative exchange of FrT and SumT, commenting on audience expectations and the motives and techniques of the two narrators, but focusing particularly on the cleverness of…

Assesses previous explanations of the "greyn" placed on the clergeon's tongue in PrT (7.662ff.), including comments on analogues, and suggests that it is best understood as a "grain of paradise," i.e., the seed capsule of Aframomum melegueta…

Explores the "stylistic rationale" for Chaucer's uses of the historical present tense, identifying the fundamental "connotation of continuing action" of the grammatical form, and assessing its rhetorical, semantic, and tonal effects in various…

Explores the unity of HF evident in the "evolution of the narrator, Geffrey," arguing that the poem "is essentially a humorous and all-embracing review of man's frantic quest for fame, learning, and love" that follows the educating of [a] drudging…

Interprets details of FrT in light of contemporaneous social commentaries to clarify nuances of irony, sarcasm, and criticism of the Summoner.

Reads Antigone's song (TC 2.827-75) as a "reply to Criseyde's objections to love" which precedes it in the narrative. Much of the song derives from Guillaume de Machaut's "Paradis d'Amour," but its sequence and several ideas mirror Criseyde's earlier…

Argues that MerT "was composed before and independent of" MerP, initially addressed orally by Chaucer to a "courtly audience." Such listeners were familiar with the "humorous antifeministic tradition" into which the "senex amans" convention,…

Reviews and evaluates discussions of the authenticity of "the six-line continuation and the final couplet of the Nun's Priest's epilogue," agreeing on textual grounds with the "traditional judgment of scholars" that the lines are "inauthentic" and…

Explores parallels between several medieval analogues to Chaucer's use of the phrase "Latyn corrupt" in his description of Constance's language in MLT 2.519--the alliterative "Morte Arthure," the "Etymologiae" of Isidore of Seville (possibly, the…

Comments on thematic similarities between Plato's "Gorgias," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," and several of Chaucer's works, observing in TC a particular concern shared by Plato and Boethius: the "futility of earthly existence."

Offers evidence from Thomas Dekker's "The Bel-man of London" (1608) that supports reading "to pull a finch" as "having to do with extortion based upon a trumped-up charge of fornication," hence an accusation against the Summoner (GP 1.652) for…

Supports the reading of "hors" as plural in GP 1.74 on the grounds that "goode" in the same line is a plural form that "determines the number of the entire construction."

Describes how "the part Pandarus attempts to play" in TC "is intended by Chaucer, though not by Pandarus, as a parody of the philosophical counsel offered to Boethius" in the Consolation of Philosophy. Focuses on the comedy of the "first scene"…

Offers evidence from Rom that "tidings" in HF means "tales" rather than "news."

Surveys critics' attempts to correlate Ret with Chaucer's poetic accomplishments, commenting on biographical surmises, textual issues, and thematic concerns such as the putative waning of Chaucer's acuity, clerical influence, the firm linking of Ret…

Claims that CYT "depends on the metaphor of alchemy for both characterization and structure," discussing the Canon's Yeoman as a "fearful, naive, but by no means static" character and exploring the use of vocabulary of literary romance in his…

Adaptations of selections and abbreviations of CT in modern prose: GP, KnT, WBPT, FrPT, ClPT, FranPT, ThPT (in stanzaic poetry), NPPT, PardPT, CYPT, ManPT, and MLPT. Includes numerous color illustrations by Gustaf Tenggren and an Introduction (pp.…