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The poets' adaptations of Chaucer's work in this era reflect the nature and principles of Chaucerian transformation for the eighteenth century. In his "Fables" Dryden emphasized the moral nature of the original poems and thus established a tradition…

The dramatic Welsh work written in Shakespeare's time is a unique and important contribution to the Troilus-Cressida tradition. The author eliminates any elements of plot, theme, or character from his sources (Chaucer's TC and Henryson's "Testament…

The complex and suggestive analogies between the "Teseida" and Statius' "Thebaid" force a re-evaluation of the question "What did Chaucer do the the 'Teseida'?" in light of what Boccaccio had already done to the "Thebaid." The "Teseida" is modeled…

For Chaucer, a poem was an imaginative focus for the representation of a larger pattern of experience. The patterns created by the opposing figures of speech in his poetry (the concrete and empirical/the archetypal) reflect a complex sense of…

The labels "antifeminism" and "courtly love" misrepresent the medieval literary treatment of women. Three types--the chaste wife, the "manly" virgin, and the martyr of love--dominate the catalogues through the Middle Ages.

Though CT was neither orally prepared nor heavily alliterative, traces of both traditions are present in the work. The oral tradition almost certainly influenced Chaucer's work more predominantly. The evidence of formulaic diction in CT is strong;…

Chaucer and Rojas shared common sources and concerns, and their works are most alike in their use of sophisticated dialogue, but Rojas' vision is more destructive. Troilus and Calistro are both "courtly" lovers, but Calistro is a debased version of…

The central issue for interpretation in TC is the nature and source of human value. The two primary ways in which values are established and tested in the poem are through the use of a significant amount of philosophical material relating to the…

In spite of the limitations imposed on Chaucer by virtue of his socially inferior position in relation to his courtly audiences, his thorough mastery of rhetorical principles and techniques allowed him to transmit his "sententia," namely, the…

Reads KnT as a veiled, enigmatic "literary game," disclosing it to be a "pagan analogue of the Old Testament" and a prefiguration of the New, ripe with figurative characters and events, and deeply inscribed with archteypes.

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…