Browse Items (16381 total)

Describes Chaucer's use of "Thise" in PardT 6.661 as a marker of stylistic transition--from the "rhetorical tirade" about sins to the "more intimate and often colloquial" tale of the rioters. The usage anticipates modern English.

Proposes that the "greyn" in the mouth of the clergeon in PrT (7.622) may be related to a common medieval medical prescription for various maladies, including loss of speech: a "castorea."

An anthology of previously published materials, including selections from Boccaccio (on the Black Death) and Froissart (on the Peasants' Revolt), essays on cultural backgrounds to the fourteenth century (imagination, technology, science, courtly…

Shows how Dryden altered KnT from romance to epic in order to make his adaptation, "Palamon and Arcite," exemplify "what a heroic poem should be, and by what means it should affect the reader." Also offers "reasons why the change from romance to epic…

Political and social history of court life during the reign of Richard II, with emphasis on art and literature. Includes a chapter pertaining to Chaucer (pp. 62-73) and recurrently attends to his relations with contemporaneous poets Thomas Usk,…

Analyzes the context, syntax, and lexicon of Chaucer's reference to his now-lost "Of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde" (LGWP-G 414-5) to help establish its nature as a translation of Pope Innocent III's entire "De miseria humane conditionis."…

Announces that. in the future, reports on Chaucer studies in progress with be published in this journal, and calls for submissions.

Tallies books and articles pertaining to Chaucer--ones in progress, completed, and/or published in 1967.

A classroom anthology of poetry about war from Chaucer to the twentieth century. Includes (pp. 9-12) the description of the temple of Mars from KnT (1.1967-2050), with a narrative summary of the Tale and observations about how Chaucer combines a…

Considers the courtly conventions that are used in Mars, and argues that they are deployed ironically and comically to "show the moral deficiencies" of the courtly "system" and lead the reader to judge it accordingly. Considers the allusive…

Observes legal implications in the Clerk's reference to the Wife of Bath's "secte" (oath-helpers or compurgators), and suggests that the reference "functions to interanimate" the Wife's, Clerk's, and Merchant's shared views of female mastery.

An anthology of readings from medieval sources--literary, political, religious, etc.-- translated into modern English. Includes GP (translated by Frank E. Hill), titled "Chaucer's Picture of Medieval Society," with a brief descriptive introduction.

Argues that Chaucer combines earthly and spiritual love in TC "into one general view of love, one in which the two notions are not mutually exclusive," reading Troilus's ascent through the spheres as a kind of reward or salvation for loving well.

Reads the widow of FrT as a figural "type of the Church" that contributes to the "comic irony" of the Tale and deepens the guilt of the summoner by "playing off" of the biblical story of Rebecca.

Argues that the GP description of "Chaucer's perfect Knight . . . seems carefully constructed to accord with the aims" of a "unified crusade" that was articulated by Philip de Mézières in his proposal to organize an Order of the Passion of Jesus…

Contends that "there is no clear, indisputable evidence" of a personal relationship between Chaucer and Thomas Hoccleve in the latter's "Regement of Princes." His praise of Chaucer in that poem is evocative but generally conventional, and there is…

Assesses Gower's artistry in several tales of the "Confessio Amantis," including analysis of Gower's tale of Constance in comparison with Trevet's version and Chaucer's MLT. Argues that Gower's tale is more unified than Chaucer's and more purely…

Illustrates the riches of Chaucer's narratorial techniques by considering the presence of the narrator in GP (focusing on the descriptions of the Prioress, Monk, and Friar), the assignment to him of Tho, the ironies of PardP and WBP, and the ways…

Describes the sources of SqT and explores its relations with KnT and Anel, focusing on the narrator's clumsy concerns with the "knotte" or major point of the Tale and arguing that this and other shortcomings indicate ironically the Squire's naïve,…

Describes the neo-Platonic, Chartrian tradition in which astral influence (or determinism) includes Saturn as a figure of wisdom as well as cold, temporal destiny, suggesting that the depiction of the god/planet in "De Universitate Mundi" by Bernard…

Examines Chaucer's stanzaic and metrical dexterity in TC, discussing how and with what effects he bridges stanza breaks and how he creates emphasis through repetitions, rhyme pairs, caesuras, enjambment, narratorial disavowals, and shifting of climax…

Assesses Chaucer's characterization of Criseyde in light of Boccaccio's Criseide in "Filostrato," arguing that Chaucer makes her more of a courtly ideal and therefore more reprehensible in her infidelity and a figure of all false, worldly love.

Scans the verse in the first 100 lines of BD, with commentary on emendations and unusual features; then offers a catalog of scansion (with analysis and extensive notes) of the entire poem, concluding that the "basis of Chaucer's metrics" in BD (and…

Describes the English royal interest in the political and military maneuvers in Castile, Navarre, Aragon, and France that involved Pedro the Cruel, Pedro the Bold, Henry of Trastamara, Bernard du Guesclin, the Free Companies, and England's Black…

Characterizes Chaucer as "typically" English, commenting on his name, his sense of humor, his "love of nature," and his concern with fate, fortune, and "wyrd." Suggests several English books that Chaucer "must have read."