Browse Items (16379 total)

Following consideration of the duality of women's nature in Old English poetry, chapters are devoted to Criseyde, to the Prioress, and to the Wife of Bath to illuminate their submerged qualities.

Despite some unenthusiastic criticism and even denial of his authorship of parts of the play, Shakespeare adapts KnT faithfully, reorienting its topicality, redesigning it for the stage, and broadening its focus.

Inheriting the tradition that women were either saintly or satanic, Chaucer grasped the opposition between rhetorical and mimetic treatment, as shown especially in LGW and ManT. Robinson applies medieval and modern feminist theories.

Aware of both classical and medieval rhetoric, Chaucer in BD undermines traditions of courtly love by juxtaposing the uncomprehending narrator with the knight, an effete psychic double of the narrator who is unable to accept the fact of death.

Supporting Robert A. Pratt's theory in SP 53 (1956) that Chaucer drew on a French translation of Boccaccio, Hanly explores parallels, both verbal and thematic; the likelihood of Beauvau as translator; and the possibility of Chaucer's familiarity with…

Unlike Horn and Havelock, who mature into heroism in fulfilling their vows, Chaucer's characters in FranT make promises that govern personal relationships; their "gentilesse" transcends class and gender.

In "The Boke of Fame," Richard Pynson published Chaucer's HF, PF, and Truth, plus Chaucerian apocrypha and five additional poems. Foley explores Pynson's life, examines manuscripts and editions, investigates authorship, scrutinizes alterations,…

The Aristotelian view that the marital relationship can involve friendship (found not in Augustine but in Aelred of Rievaulx and Thomas Aquinas) influenced Jean de Meun, translator of Aelred. De Meun's treatment of the matter in "Roman de la Rose"…

Kruger investigates the ambivalent nature of dreams in light of various classical and medieval dream theories, as well as actual accounts of dreams. The "middle vision," neither divine nor satanic, figures in Langland, Nicole Oresme, and Chaucer (BD…

Most scholarly treatments of Chaucer and alchemy deal with whether Chaucer believed in alchemy or whether he condemned it, but Chaucer's primary concern with alchemy was to use it as "symbolic language," especially in SNT and CYT. This salvific…

Surveys medical and historical writing as well as clerical interpretations of the bubonic plague. Treating literary representation of the plague as emblematic of ethical and societal cataclysm, Stieve considers the role of the plague in the writings…

Protagonist and narrative are usually aligned in medieval literature, but the protagonist is alienated from the narrative when his or her ethos conflicts with generic context, as in Chaucer's TC and CYT and in works of Malory and Hoccleve, among…

Through the application of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Schaber examines HF, BD, PrT, and PardT to determine the repressed objects, erotic and political, manifested as the body and understood as fantasmatic.

Characters' sense of identity emerges variously from the varying contexts in which the selves operate. In medieval literature, this sense of identity, allied to function rather than "object-self," is drawn through purpose; "his own romantic vision"…

Chaucer's poetry presents tensions between the authority of literature and that of traditional oral wisdom. In HF, the confused narrator cannot induce meaning; in TC, Troilus's mindset, Pandarus's and Criseyde's reliance on proverbs, and the…

Shakif-Ghaly scrutinizes "Yvain" and TC for medieval "dispositio" through Genettian narratology and for "manifestatio" through Anglo-American theory. Despite differences between the texts, such an analysis brings out tensions of medieval authors and…

Examines "tectonics and compositional strategies" in Chrétien's "Yvain" and in TC, focusing on "disposition" and the relationship between orality and textuality in each work.

Nouns of address and the two second-person forms offer clues to perceptions of rank, ideals, and tone, as well as to characterization. Chaucer and the "Gawain"-poet exploit linguistic resources brilliantly.

Draws contrasts between Sir Gawain, who attempts to act the part of standard knight of romance, and the protagonists of WBT and MerT. The Wife sets her tale in the medieval antifeminist matrix; the Merchant, building on her insight, mingles romance,…

Examines the emotional exploitation of the grotesque and sensational in the light of various modern critical views. Analyzes writings from Old English homilies to Margery Kempe, including Chaucer's ClT and PhyT.

Chaucer and Boccaccio, as the first sophisticated authors to write in the genre, adapted certain fabliaux to their purposes.

By giving a voice to the shrewish Wife of Bath and to Katherine of Padua, Chaucer and Shakespeare demonstrate their grasp (if not their personal views) of the proper role of gender in the ancient debate. Treats "Othello," "King Lear," "Measure for…

Three paradigms of the Celtic universe made their way, through either oral or literary tradition, into early English literature, as is shown in "Sir Orfeo," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," passages from four of the tales in CT, Spenser, and…

Religious learning as an aid for salvation is a theme running through late-fourteenth-century works including CT, Piers Plowman, and Wycliffite writing. Chaucer satirizes scholastic studies in WBT, FrT, and SumT. Although not involved in the…

Although earlier dream visions aimed at revelation of universal truths, Chaucer's poems in this mode present individuals who achieve no direct answers to their questions. William of Ockham, not necessarily a direct influence, provides methods for…