Browse Items (16381 total)

Evaluates the "style and structure" of Chaucer's poetry, exploring the interaction of pronunciation and versification and the limitations of medieval and modern rhetorics for describing and gauging Chaucer's techniques. Includes scansion of lines and…

Explores the emphases and nuances of early critical praise and imitation of Chaucer's poetry among writers such as John Lydgate, Stephen Hawes, the author of "The Book of Curtysye," and others. Focuses on their assessments of the "craftsmanship" of…

Suggests that the pun on "hooly" in RvT 1.3983-84 as "holy" and wholly" encourages us to also see further word-play in the tale: "panne" as "penny" at 1.3944 and "allye" as "alloy" at 1.3945, both related to recognizing the connotations of "bras" as…

Includes a chapter on PrT and three of its analogues that considers the "greyn" in Chaucer's version.

In two parts: 1) Elliott admires the unity and aesthetic qualities of PardT and addresses PardP as Chaucer's successful means to insert commentary on Church corruption; 2) Thomas argues that the Pardoner's effrontery and the moral failings of the…

Edits a selection of Robert Henryson's poetry, with appended critical notes and glosses, an Introduction, a Biographical and Textual Note, and a series of Appreciations by literary historians. The Introduction (pp. vii-xv) focuses on how and to what…

Compares and contrasts the uses of northern dialectical words and forms in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscript versions of RvT, assessing J. R. R. Tolkien's evaluations of them (1934), and extending the discussion beyond northern forms to…

Argues that MerT "characterizes the Merchant" consistently, attributing several "awkward" passages in the Tale to the Merchant's engagement with an ongoing "debate" about marriage and considering his "pretensions" and "intense personal involvement"…

Shows by multiple examples from various works that Chaucer "used oaths not only to give poignancy to character but to add irony, to give a touch of local colour, [and] to create atmosphere and background." Oaths in Chaucer's works tend to be…

Describes the literary resources available to Chaucer (and their limitations), comments on the works that influenced him most pervasively, and explores the "close links" between dreaming and reading in his dream visions (BD, PF, HF, and LGWP) and…

Considers the Wife of Bath's "colloquial, conversational idiom as a key to her character," examining details of diction, syntax, and imagery, and comparing her with Alison of MilT.

Compares the various landscape features in Chaucer's works with the walled garden of the Roman de la Rose. The merit of Chaucer's landscapes is that the poet tailored them to be part of an intimate, homey world.

Chaucer created a literary dialect that influenced writers centuries later. Elliott focuses on Chaucer's dialect, pronunciation, and grammar; Hardy's words and syntax; and Garner's rythms and cadences.

Analyzes clerical speech habits in Chaucer's GP "ars descriptionis personae"; affective tone in PrT, SNP, SNT, MkT, and ClT; and, where appropriate, the connection with the stately rhyme-royal stanza--with contrasts to language, verse styles, and…

Chaucer's comments on language show him to be particularly sensitive to all aspects of English, which had become fully accepted as a literary language. Along with other Middle English writers like the "Gawain"-poet and Langland, he manipulates…

An introduction to Chaucer's pronunciation, grammar, and prosody, followed by an extensive analysis of his lexicon that considers aspects of his syntax, prose vocabulary, colloquial language, oaths, scientific diction, characterization through…

Questions some of critics' claims about the Pardoner (particularly rejecting the claim that he is drunk), and argues that the Pardoner's character and his performance cohere and exhibit his "craft and talent" as well as his efforts "to entertain and…

Introductory, descriptive analysis of NPPT and PardPT, "designed primarily for the school, college, and university student." Summarizes the places of the two Tales in CT and explains their poetic and thematic concerns, focusing on the artful…

An anthology of reprinted publications, addresses, and a memoir by R.W.V. Elliott, with topics including Chaucer, the "Gawain"-poet, runes, Thomas Hardy, and more. Two of the three pieces that pertain to Chaucer were published previously, and one is…

The Prioress aligns herself with the widow in her Tale and with the Virgin Mary. Although the clergeon is like Christ in his challenge to Jewish tradition, PrT is concerned with female power as well as with cultural prejudice.

The activities of Pandarus in TC and Celestina in Gernando de Rojas's "Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea" show the similarities in the panderer's roles and the fundamental disparities between Chaucer's and Rojas's visions. Celestina's world is…

Both in the GP portrait of the Reeve and in RvPT, Chaucer draws on medieval devil iconography and folklore, deepening the sinister character of this pilgrim and helping to explain his particular hair style, his thinness, his home in the North, and…

An intertextual study of Margery Kempe and May in MerT reveals how language, sex, and money, considered as "media of exchange," affect medieval discourse concerning women and merchants, and especially merchants' wives. All three media are recognized…

Most of the major elements of plot and theme in ClT reappear in Alice Walker's novel of 1982. The heroines of each, Griselda and Celie, passively accept male domination and tyranny but finally achieve reconciliation.

Associations of the home and domestic situation with "ambiguity, insecurity, and women's vulnerability" are most effective in TC and ClT. In the medieval home, the hall was the domain of the male and open to public affairs; the chamber was the…