Browse Items (16377 total)

Translates a potion of the "Roman de Thebes" into modern English; the Introduction to the translation includes discussion of Chaucer's uses of the work in KnT

Uses late-medieval literary and historical sources to define the Anglo-French ideal of a "perfect knight," and applies this understanding to KnT, MkT, WBT, and FranT.

Discusses Criseyde in "English, French, Latin, and some Italian literature between the middle of the twelfth and the end of the fifteenth century," establishing that she was "a type of the fickle woman long before" Chaucer wrote TC.

Describes the conventions of late-medieval English "literary dreams," and explores how Chaucer, William Langland, and the "Pearl"-poet exploit the "potentialities of the form," including discussion of the development of the dream narrator in BD, HF,…

Describes the French influences on BD of, among others, three poems by Machaut, one by Froissart, and Guillaume de Lorris's portion of the "Roman de la Rose," demonstrating the dependence and innovations of Chaucer's work in the tradition of the…

Studies Chaucer's uses of Ovid in Mars, Ven, Pity, Anel, BD, HF, and TC, focusing on complaints and depictions of women, and providing lists of observed parallels between Chaucer and Ovid, work by work. This dissertation was completed in 1963.

Assesses prior critical treatments of Chaucer's uses of rhetoric and traces a pattern of development from his use of the "conventional methods of expansion and embellishment" of the medieval rhetoricians, through "increasing independence" to…

Tabulates and analyzes Chaucer's "normalized diction," i.e., a "diction that is very repetitive and free from syntactic eccentricity, a diction that utilizes the same words to express the same ideas in different contexts." Compares and contrasts…

Edits the minor poem of Stephen Hawes, with notes that include recurrent comments on the influence of Chaucer and Lydgate.

Explores the impact and significance of music in Chaucer's works in light of three traditions: philosophic, Scriptural, and poetic, concluding that "Chaucer's music is far more meaningful and amusing than critics have thought," and the "major…

Surveys medieval and Renaissance accounts and allusions to Julius Caesar as background to analysis of Shakespeare's depiction of him in "Julius Caesar," including commentary on Chaucer's several references to Caesar and analysis of the Caesar section…

Investigates Chaucer's concept of "gentilesse" in light of his sources in Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meun, and compares his notion with those found in the poetry of his contemporaries. Treats "gentilesse" as a secular virtue, although similar to…

Studies Chaucer's narrative personae in BD and PF, identifying several traits that become "regular marks" of his later self-characterizations: a bookish reteller who interjects personal comments, "comic self-depreciation," and ambiguous "fascination"…

Explores Chaucer's references and allusions to pagan gods in BD, Mars, KnT, TC, and MerT, emphasizing his innovations that are evident in light of source-and-analogue analysis.

Summarizes portions of Boccaccio's "Teseida" and assesses parallel portions of KnT in light of these summaries, emphasizing Chaucer's "reworking" of his source in characterizing Palamon, Arcite, and Theseus through "symbolic imagery."

Focuses on the tension in TC between the "two dimensions of human experience: the temporal and the eternal," examining the "paradoxical position" of humans as they seek to "discover and affirm" a stable and permanent world while existing as creatures…

Studies Chaucer's uses of first-person narration in light of rhetorical tradition and medieval notions of the individual, examining PF as the site of the first "fully realized" instance of Chaucer's "characteristic narrative mode," reading TC as…

Surveys scholarship concerning Chaucer's word-play, describes the place of "double-entendre" in rhetorical tradition, and explicates 204 of Chaucer's word-plays in CT, concluding that there is some correlation between punning and the bawdy tales.

Evaluates the quality of Thomas Tyrwhitt as a scholar, examining his life, his early works, his edition of CT, and the ongoing reception of this edition. Concludes that Tyrwhitt was "one of the finest examples of the eighteenth-century…

Adduces evidence of the influence of Boccaccio's "Decameron" on CT by collecting all available indications of similarity--instances of borrowing and less specific parallel details.

Explores the attitudes toward death depicted in ABC, Purse, HF, and Bo, and studies CT for evidence of what Chaucer's own opinion of death may have been.

Traces the topos of the sufferer as protagonist in classical, Christian, and late Latin sources and explores it "as an element" in KnT, TC, and Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," arguing that Chaucer tends to emphasize "the value of acceptant…

Studies sermon rhetoric in CT, identifying its roots in preaching handbooks and considering its value for understanding aspects of structure, style, and characterization in SNT, NPT, ParsT, PardT, WBT, and SumT, treating the Pardoner, the Wife of…

Illustrates how literary works "can be read existentially from the point of view of the reader's ontological concern with them," discussing James Joyce's "Clay," William Blake's "The Little Black Boy," and WBPT. Reads WBT as a "reflection of the…

Reads LGW as a comic "parody . . . partially directed at sentimental readings of the Ovidian complaint" found in "Heroides," focusing on the palinode, love vision, and characters of LGWP and the "humorous inconsistencies" of the legends.