Browse Items (16380 total)

Free adaptation of CT for children: GP, KnT, MilT, NPT, RvT, ClT, WBT, PardT, Th, FranT, ManT, CYT, FrT, and MerT. Provides links for the Tales in the above order and concludes with an arrival at Canterbury. First published in 1984; a Penguin Film…

Considers textual issues that pertain to the "Host stanza" at the end of ClT (4.1212a-g) and several passages in MkT and NPT: the "Adam stanza" (7.2007-14), the "Modern Instances" (7.2375-2462), and the short versus long versions of NPP. Discusses…

Comparative analysis of the themes, techniques, and intertextual relationships of Ruiz's "Libro de buen amor," Boccaccio's "Decameron," and CT. Topics include world view, love and passion, nascent humanism, satire and irony, and narrative structures.…

Gillmeister explains "vitremite" as a combination of "uistre" (oyster) and "ermite" (hermit), a Chaucerian coinage for a kind of headwear the poet may have associated with monasteries.

Explores Chaucer's depictions of physicians, focusing on how they exemplify the tension between "medici corporals" (bodily medicine) and "spirituals" (spiritual medicine). None of Chaucer's physicians exhibit an ideal balance; Chaucer explores a…

Suggests that the "cluster of ideas" that conclude Shakespeare's Sonnet 38 are a version of the "topos of supplication" that Bawcutt traces back to Boccaccio's "Filostrato," citing mediating examples in TC (1.15-21), KnT (2405-6), and Gavin Douglas's…

Reassesses several "flaws" perceived by J. A. W. Bennett in his analysis (1982) of Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," and argues that each has a "proper function" in the poem. Compares and contrasts Henryson's characterization of Cresseid…

Summarizes the life of William Caxton and his place at the head of the English printing tradition, providing basic information about fifteenth-century printing, linguistic conditions, and orthographical practice. Focuses on the seven volumes of…

Summarizes the life of William Thynne and gauges the editorial practices and influence of his 1532 edition of Chaucer's "Workes," arguing that it introduced humanistic rigor into the editing of English works. Although Thynne's practices were…

Best known for his "Survey of London," John Stow produced an edition of Chaucer's works in 1561 that influenced Elizabethan readers, even though it is largely a reprint of William Thynne's edition of 1532 (1550 reprint) that adds several works,…

Describes the importance of Thomas Speght in the tradition of Chaucerian scholarship. Relying in part on John Stow's research, Speght produced a hurried edition in 1598, and partially influenced by Francis Thynne's recommendations, carefully revised…

Summarizes the practices and impact of John Urry's 1721 edition of Chaucer's works, describing its conservative canon and its text that, though based on multiple witnesses, was radically emended in order to achieve metrical regularity. Published…

Describes Thomas Tyrwhitt as "the founder of modern Chaucer editing" and assesses the legacy of his 1775 edition of CT (with glossary, 1778), summarizing editorial principles and practices, the multiple witnesses to the text, and Tyrwhitt's several…

Summarizes the editorial career of Thomas Wright and the "lasting significance" of his edition of CT, valuable because "Wright chose, or perhaps happened upon, the best-text editorial method" and because "his explanatory notes, while not extensive,"…

Summarizes Furnivall's capacious contributions to Chaucer studies (and Middle English generally), and comments that his "chief contributions" to the editing of Chaucer lie in his "selection of the texts" to print and his care with copying, printing,…

Summarizes the progress of Skeat's career as an editor of Chaucer, articulating his debts to Richard Morris, F. J. Furnivall, and Henry Bradshaw, and acclaiming his accomplishments as the beginning of the "Modern Age" of Chaucer scholarship.…

Explains Root's dependence on William Symington McCormick's theory of Chaucer's seriatim revisions of TC, and castigates the "illogical rationalism" of Root's editorial methods, especially his treatment of scribal error. Root's "longing for an…

Denounces Manly and Rickert's "The Text of the Canterbury Tales," asserting the editors' failure to state and maintain consistent editorial methods, their confused and confusing classification of manuscripts, and their error in attempting to apply…

Describes the "elephantine gestation" of Robinson's edition of Chaucer's "Works," summarizes its early reception and progress to becoming a "standard edition," and assesses the text as "conservative, highly informed, and eclectic, though arrived at…

Technical report of a set of acoustic experiments designed to gauge how "voicing duration" interacts with intonation to "give a poetic line much of its 'personality'." One experiment assesses eight readings of a passage from Alexander Pope's "Essay…

Study guide to the CT, with synopses, character descriptions, suggestions or research papers and sample tests, backgrounds on Chaucer's life and times, and bibliography.

Places Shakespeare's bird dialogue from the end of "Love's Labour's Lost" in the tradition of bird debates, commenting on other examples of the genre, and noting parallels with PF and Sir John Clanvowe's "The Boke of Cupid," attributed to Chaucer…

Summary description of Chaucer's life and social contexts, accompanying by appreciative analyses of each of his major works, especially the CT (each tale summarized and described). Also includes discussion of Chaucer's genres, his uses of rhetoric,…

An anthology of selections from English poetry, accompanied by pertinent illustrations and social context, with topics ranging from Chaucer to the "Later Twentieth Century, 1934-84." Chapter one (pp. 1-15) pertains to Chaucer, with brief biographical…

Asserts that the label "Scots Chaucerian" clearly does not apply to William Dunbar, documenting the "meagerness of the evidence of Chaucer's influence on him" and demonstrating that Dunbar's poetry is "completely continental" rather than Chaucerian.