Browse Items (16377 total)

From opening sign of Aries to closing sign of Libra, the pilgrimage moves between the termini of Creation and Doomsday, using symbolism of spring and autumn in the day's cycle.

This critical reading views the beginning and ending as fixed,"twin pillars...within which the unfolding fresco of the action is contained." Traversi explores that action in three parts: KnT and the two fabliaux; the tales of marriage and…

Chaucer departs from the traditional estates satire by using commercial language and allusion, for an audience with a commercial attitude.

The traditional reading is that Arcite's horse pitches him to the ground so that Arcite, falling on his head, has his chest shattered by the saddlebow. The words "pomel" and "pighte," however, show that Arcite is not thrown from his horse but is…

Why is the Knight identified with crusades against the infidel at a time when crusading fervor had supposedly dissipated? Evidence from three contemporary disputes over armorial bearings (at one of which Chaucer testified) suggests that the…

The medieval bagpipe was featured in Nativity scenes, depictions of angels, and royal occasions. The Miller's bagpipe was a soft, pleasant, courtly, even celestial instrument--in subtly ironic contrast to his character.

Views MilT in context of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's theories on perception, immanence, and transcendence.

The "cherles terms" in MilT--"craft," "hende," "deerne," "sleigh," "privee"--are connotative; those in RvT--"theef," "sly"--are denotative.

The Norfolk origin of the Reeve provides a "ready-made expectation of avarice."

In his portrait of the village parson, the Reeve uses the language of traditional complaint literature, especially in attacking simony.

Clerk John's oath by "seint Cutberd" (line 4127) is to the appropriate saint Cuthbert, but Chaucer puns on "cut-beard," suggesting sexual deceit.

Characterized by shortcomings and privation, the Reeve succeeds in his villainy as ruler of darkness.

From KnT to CkT, tales degenerate from magnificence to grossness. MLT attempts to establish decorum but backfires on the teller, who "courts the sin of presumption."

Argues that "a ful greet bryngere out of bisynesse" means "remover of worries."

The Wife of Bath's allusion to the fable of "A Lion and a Man" indicates the "sentence" unifying her Prologue into cogent satire and emphasizes the aim of her rhetorical devices.

Investigates traditions of medieval antifeminism to show the ambivalences present in the Wife, whom Chaucer presents as both a satire on womanhood and a threat to orthodox male authority.

Margery has much in common with Alisoun: middle-class status, outspokenness, avid interest in or obsession with sex, devotion to Christianity, and passion for pilgrimages.

Although the two pilgrims look very different, they have similarities.

Folklorists describe liminal tales as experiences that are part of a rite of passage from one realm of experience to another. Viewed thus, FrT assumes new complexities: it reflects the total pilgrimage experience of CT.

FrT reflects hostility, especially among the lower classes, against widespread corruption and double standards among archdeacons and summoners, as surviving documents of the period amply and graphically suggest.

Discusses the friar, comparing Chaucer's anticlericalism to Boccaccio's in the "Decameron."

Some medieval readers or hearers would have considered ClT incredible or cruel. The Clerk agrees with the Wife that gentilesse means "trouthe," fidelity and integrity.

Walter and Griselda embody qualities to be found in medieval discussions of tyrants and "commune profit," but they go beyond abstract ideas as characters in their own right.

Although Chaucer's version of the Griselda story closely follows that of Petrarch, ClT makes the marquis less sympathetic and Griselda more so.

Both "Pearl" and ClT use comparatives for contrasts with a notion of satisfaction signified by the words "enough" and "suffisaunce." The set of related words in ClT, including "sadness," "suffraunce," "outrely," and other words of degree and…