Browse Items (16381 total)

Theoretical "auctoritee" and "auctoritee" as misunderstood by characters in Chaucer are worlds apart. Chaucer was more interested in the violability than in the inviolability of "auctoritee." Many of the Canterbury Tales depend on cases which…

Includes discussion of Chaucer's PrT as well as Aeschylus's "Suppliants" and works by Phillis Wheatley, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin.

The action of TC takes place in both naturalistic and schematic space. This opposition is reinforced by the creation of an intrusive narrator and a fictional audience. Schematic space functions as a principle of limitation, reinforcing the…

Chap. I studies Chaucer's awareness of the assets and liabilities of working within a tradition in PF and Purse. Chap. II argues that HF is finished. Chap. III sees the contradiction between the Pardoner's confession and tale as an effort to put…

A reading of Chaucer's dream visions as a genre reveal a controlling tension between the narrator's awareness of the demands of Christian doctrine and his human compassion for those enduring the rigors of life on earth. He is sympathetic to human…

LGW provides an important statement of Chaucer's poetics. It recognizes his genuine debt to his French contemporaries. The poet-dreamer does not reject or parody the tradition of "fin amor," but under its direction he acknowledges the poet's duty…

The "Song of Songs" has received little attention for its influence on other literary works. In two of CT tales, Chaucer exploits the allegorical interpretations of the "Song." The ambiguity of the interpretations in the Christian era made the…

Chaucer does not attempt to work within the framework of such established literary forms as romance and fabliau. The flaws in the genre approach become evident when the tales are judged from the broader perspective of medieval rhetoric and poetic.

The rhetorical and narrative conventions used by Chaucer in his saintly tales reveal him an accomplished hagiographer. An analysis of the narrator's rhetoric in describing the characters in GP produces a better understanding of the relation between…

When King Alfred translated Boethius' "Consolation," he changed some of the materials so that it could be understood by his people whereas Chaucer tried to translate as accurately as his Middle English would allow. The two translations are as…

When the Griselda legend first appears in English literature, in ClT, Griselda is praised for her patience. In subsequent versions, as the centuries pass, her patience loses its moral worth and comes to be equated with unhealthy submissiveness.

Even though Chaucer's characters are defined by the strong theological framework in which they appear, they still achieve an effect of individualized feeling and characterization. Although TC reveals elements of a controlled classical approach to…

"The Isle of Ladies" was attributed to Chaucer until 1878. It is primarily a lover's complaint to his lady. The characters are based on Chaucerian models (like Criseyde) but play somewhat different roles.

The contradictions surrounding the Pardoner are an important thematic element in PardT. The trickster figure found in mythology represents a figure that is supposed to embody contradictions. Viewing the Pardoner as such a trickster figure allows…

In medieval narrative theory, "aporia" is set forth as a way of examining the moment when the ironic process begins. BD relies on a withdrawal from literal statement which brings the author's intention to the reader through the process of irony.

De Worde's 1498 edition of CT uses no other source than CX2. The many variants between the two texts result from his attempts to correct the CX2 edition and his adherence to common practices of early printers. One significant variant in de Worde's…

The body of this dissertation consists of a chronological compendium made up of an individual abstract-like annotation for each significant piece of scholarship (published before 31 December, 1969) which has treated BD during the first 600 years…

Neither tedious nor ignorant, MkT teaches a "sound Boethian lesson" and can be seen as "artistically refined" in its evocation of tragic pathos. The Knight, the Host, and the critics err in castigating the Monk and his Tale.

Chaucer's chief object in LGW is to explore, through the art of "variatio," irrational sexual passion as a source of human misery. The legends divide into three distinct groups: the pathetic tale, Dido and its variations, and star-crossed lovers.

PF, "Temple of Glas," and "Kingis Quair" deal not with courtly love but with marriage. The idea underlying all three works is that one should be free to marry whom one loves.

BD is revisionary art which de-mystifies the language of conventionalized desire and revises the Boethian consolation dialogue. The narrator suffers the same "tristitia" as the knight and must be cured. A confession entails the knight's Augustinian…

The opposition of knowledge in HF suggests the fourteenth-century reaction to the scholastic efforts of the thirteenth century to forge a synthesis between reason and faith. However, this dissertation does not argue that Chaucer was a reformer. The…

The basic narrative unit is limited to nine possible combinations. These combinations can be illustrated by application to the four tales of the Marriage Group in CT. These nine relationships can also be applied to characters, to the relationships…

Chaucer stands firmly in the tradition of "Phaedrus" and "Timaeus" by virtue of the "imagistic" and figural view of reality he presents in CT. References to Boethius' "Consolation of Philosophy" further emphasize the Platonic approach to rhetoric. …

A line-by-line commentary on NPT reveals that the primary difficulties of the poem are not linguistic, but lie rather in the tremendous range of subjects from which Chaucer draws in the work: medicine, theology, astrology, and music, among others.