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Rhetoric functions to shape the content of the narrative in a particular way and is successful when it enables the reader to actively participate in constructing the fictional world. Chaucer, Fielding, and Dickens call attention to their narrative…

An examination of some works commonly classified as romances--WBT, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," "The Tale of King Arthur," "The Tempest," "The Winter's Tale," and "As You Like It"--yields a definition of "romance." It is the magician who…

The ways these three pilgrims use four rhetorical devices--"occupatio," "brevitas," "digressio," and "descriptio"--reveals their personalities. The Knight's self-conscious narrative stance shows his pretensions: his insensitivity in his use of…

The religious "confessio"-tradition includes three modes: "Confessio peccati," "confessio fidei," and "confessio laudis." "Confessio fidei," which implies a self-testimony, provides the dominant mode for the secular literary "confessio" tradition,…

Unlike the knight of the chivalric theorists, who is ideally a force for justice and stability, the knight of the courtly romance is a solitary figure whose primary concern is self-fulfillment without regard to the community at large. As a courtly…

TC can be read with two distinct poetic traditions in mind: the serious, Platonic ideal represented by Dante, which desires absolute truth, purposeful behavior, and an immutable self; and the Ovidian rhetorical ideal which upholds behavior shaped by…

The image of woman is the focal point for the controversy regarding the good or evil nature of the physical world. Early Christian and Gnostic writings, selected troubadour lyrics, "Gawain and the Green Knight," Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur," and…

The genres of history and romance in Middle English Troy poems are distinguished by contrasting attitudes towards sources and the historicity of the subject; by a corresponding contrast in attitudes towards the historical distance between past and…

The fourteenth century accepted literary conventions of the love code and approved warfare with honor and profit conjoined. Chaucer understands chivalry without attacking it: Theseus, in KnT, is an idealized knight modeled on Edward III; Th…

Chaucerian irony works variously: in PardT to show unadmitted brotherhood in sin; in MLT to reveal the narrator's limitations; in KnT to undercut chivalry; in TC to show the self-subversion of courtly love; in PF to ridicule the narrator's neglect…

Chaucer develops original significances for birds, especially in HF, NPT, and PF. Birds variously represent the bestial in humanity, models for human society, objects of ridicule, and mediators between God and man. All four can be seen in the…

Previous investigators of the sixteen extant TC MSS assumed three "parent" forms, presumed to represent Chaucer's recensions. Two MSS before 1400 may be the work of Chaucer's scribe.

Contains a glossary of all saints referred to in CT, with notes relating them to medieval art, plus commentary on fourteen associated with Reeve, Wife of Bath, and Pardoner or named in FrT, SumT, and CYT.

Records of medieval pilgrimages and parish guilds indicate that groups like that of CT actually gathered; thus the frame may have been modeled on the contemporary scene rather than a literary source. The pilgrim churls' mutual insults follow a…

Proverbs appear conventionally in most of Chaucer's early works, usually to lament changes in fortune. In the short poems, For, Buk, and Scog, however, Chaucer's proverbs become personal. In TC and CT proverbs spoken by characters (especially…

The nine surviving Anglo-Norman fabliaux (three translated from manuscripts are appended) differ from their seven English counterparts (five in CT) in depicting higher social ranks, incorporating less violence, and introducing less antifeminism. …

Medieval musical allusions provide an internationally shared set of signs for allegorical poetry and help unify medieval literature stylistically. Ruiz ironically conflates the fleshly and heavenly aspects of music, and Machaut employs harmony to…

Critical views of the Pardoner range from total condemnation to interpretations of him as Christlike, with current views seeing him as evil. Interpretations can be immediate, direct, and simple, or complicated sociopsychologically or…

Comparison of Chaucer's poem with Boccaccio's reveals the narrator in conflict with the story as Chaucer himself both came into conflict with the ideas and ideals represented and also understood his role as poet. As lovers are seduced by a seemingly…

The Breton lay evolved from Celtic tradition to generic identity with Marie de France to art form in Chaucer's WBT and FranT. Most clearly characterized by the "merveilleux," it has crossed cultural boundaries in such a way as to lose its motives…

The narrator's eight-year sickness may refer to the last illness of Henry, Duke of Lancaster. The portrait of Lady White departs significantly from that of Machaut's lady in "Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne" to reconcile courtly with Christian love.

In Chaucer, as in patristic writings, true marriage proceeds from physical to psychological to spiritual union, even emblematizing the relationship of God to church or soul. Analysis of marriage in CT further reveals sexual politics.

HF classifies memory as an aspect of Prudence, as reflected in its three-part structure and reinforced by its thematic meditation on fame. GP portraits develop with details of "artificial" memory, as do the pilgrimage itself and the game. KnT…

Chaucer's lyric mode developed from the conventional toward the original, from everyman-speaker toward individual voice,from vague to concrete, from realist toward nominalist in philosophical outlook.

Medieval romances reflect changing attitudes toward social conflicts with chronologically developing alterations in their audiences. Chaucer's romances are studied briefly.