Browse Items (16472 total)

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…

A study of later medieval commentaries on classical myth in the Boethian work sheds light on such matters as Chaucer's treatment of the Muses and Lydgate's view of Hercules.

Neither WBT nor "Gawain" presents straightforward satire on late-fourteenth-century English romance. At once ironic and idealistic, the two works provide a human redefinition of the genre as exemplified in contemporary chivalric writing.

With CT, Chaucer raises many feminist cultural issues, exploring gender stereotyping and the limits it imposes on individuals. The men of KnT contrast with those of MilT and MerT, and all diverge from the overtly Christian ParsT. Exemplary female…

Although personification is currently devalued, analysis of its poetic codes of invention reveals its complexity in the works of Prudentius, Langland, Spenser and Chaucer (HF and PF).

Humor may be classified as visual, antirepressive, and linguistic-stylistic (sophisticated and often ironic). Gloss treats seven authors of four nationalities, including Chaucer.

Chaucer's prosody has been underrated. With its unity, completeness, and carefully developed stanzas, TC demonstrates Chaucer's mastery of sound and sense.

Penitential theology, as derived from St. Augustine and subsequent writers, holds humanity to be sinful yet possessed of reason and hence of responsibility. ParsT and Ruiz's Prologue examine this tradition with examples to reveal human nature; thus,…

Although the medieval Venus and Cupid are usually interpreted interchangeably on the basis of "courtly love" or the Robertsonian concept of "caritas" and "cupiditas," analysis of texts (including HF, PF, KnT, TC, and LGW) indicates otherwise. Venus…

The deserted woman, deriving from classical sources through medieval tradition, embodied the conflict of "amor" and "pietas." Appearing in allusion, exempla, and the poems HF, LGW, MLT, FranT, Anel, and TC, the deserted woman demonstrates for…

Although classical, Renaissance, and modern satire may represent recognizable genres, a definition of medieval satire must be sought through consideration of how classical satirists were studied in medieval schools and how three poets wrote.

Though read as tragedy, comedy or satire, TC can be understood as "compilatio" or Bakhtinian "polyglossa." With Boccaccio's plot of tragic love, Chaucer incorporates a subtext of Boethian philosophy (as treated by Jean de Meun) and allusions to…

TC yields diametrically opposed readings to a feminist and a semiotician. Through alteration and modulation of critical assumptions, a new model for medieval literature may be set forth.

Twelfth-century lyric employs a generalized, nonhistoric "I"; thirteenth-century composition represses this voice in favor of a specific and individualized narrator. BD, though it seems to endorse the latter, actually returns to the songlike,…

CT is treated, along with the "Decameron," in part 2, chapter 4, following background analysis of "One Thousand and One Nights" in Arabic tradition and preceding consideration of Cervantes and Borges.

Consistent with Bakhtinian theory, the palinode as textual stratagem has complicated the interpretation of works from the classics through Stampa and Sidney. The Griselda story as told by Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer demonstrates the role of…