Browse Items (16381 total)

Beheading appears frequently in Indo-European, Old Germanic, and Old and Middle English narratives, with varying connotations. The textual history of PrT shows this element as sometimes deleted and sometimes restored.

Half a millenium before Freud, Chaucer's WBT asks "What does woman want?" In light of recent critical theory, this question is explored in the works of Gabriela Mistral and Gillian Clarke as well as in WBT.

Ovid and the Ovidian tradition provided Chaucer with a poetic ranging from the "game" of Ars Amatoria to the "ernest" of Tristia. Chaucer uses rhetoric to various ends with the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, and the Canon. In Ret, however, Chaucer…

The "forms of allegory" found in Walter of England's Latin "Fabulae," as well as its "structure and vocabulary of scholastic presentation, profoundly influenced the fables of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and Robert Henryson." Discusses NPT,…

With the fourteenth-century philosophical division between faith and reason, or single and multiple authorities, English poetry reveals new tensions, as shown in "Pearl," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and "Piers Plowman." HF,with its many…

Discusses Pasolini's trilogy of films adapted from Boccaccio's "Decameron," Chaucer's CT, and "The Arabian Nights." Looking at the trilogy in the contexts of film and of literature, Rumble investigates the cultural and ideological implications of…

Though some of Chaucer's works are now considered ironic, satirical of the narrator's persona, Chaucer experimented with genuine pathos in SNT, MLT, PrT, SqT, and LGW.

MLP and other comments suggest that late-medieval readers were "disconcerted" by Gower's repeated treatments of incest. Examination of his poem reveals him (through Genius) turning Amans from the incestuous love of Venus and Cupid to pure heavenly…

Studies the ways "expressions of romantic fulfillment are disrupted by the excesses and inconsistencies that desire produces in the narrative developments and rhetorical gestures" of works about love by Chaucer, Montemayor, Sidney, and Shakespeare.

Middle English "hap" develops a network of meanings among texts--from providential in "Patience"; to Chaucer's Boethian applications in TC; to the varied ill luck, astrological destiny, and providence of Malory--thus demonstrating the impossibility…

The term "Scottish Chaucerians," evolving from Henryson's "Testament of Criseyde," proves inaccurate, overly limited, and unfortunate, since the fifteenth-century Scottish poets,superior to their English contemporaries, initiated their nations great…

Explores "narrative space" as represented in the Bayeux Tapestry, a world map of 1300, two French romances, Dante's "Commedia," and CT to show that the modern anxiety generated by them can be dispelled by understanding built-in signs.

Discusses thematic and structural implications of parody and analogy in various Chaucerian works and other medival literature.

Though reduced to a symbol in KnT, Emelye foreshadows the Christian virgin; in MLT, despite her passivity and the rhetoric surrounding her, Constance engages audience sympathy and imparts a Christian message; in SNT, Cecilia reveals divine light.

HF, PF, and LGW are examples of "play" in Huizinga's sense. At once occasional poems and investigations of poetic theory, they act together to permit Chaucer to depart, in CT, from traditional poetics and perhaps politics.

Because modern medical theories tend to slight classical and medieval theories (Galen, Aristotle, Avicenna), some of Chaucer's works are usually imperfectly understood. (For instance, flatulence was associated with virility.)

In light of Hans Jauss's reception theory, most scribes' and readers' glosses characterize SNT as either a study of Cecilia's personality or a reflection of Chaucer's religious nature. The narrative structure, however, places it at the juncture of…

Poets have used the complaint to express their own poetic and social situations. In BD, the nonaristocratic poet must work within a courtly mode; in TC, he expresses the "need for a sympathetic audience."

In light of Gerald Brun's investigations into historical hermeneutic theories, Chaucer may be seen as employing messenger figures throughout his oeuvre, from BD to CT. This role applies especially to Alys of Bath (despite her claims on Venus and…

Although Chaucer has been seen as a medieval nominalist or realist, or both at once, he should actually be recognized as an "intentional realist" in the modern (John F. Searle) sense.

Writers (Lao-Tzu, Chaucer, Lawrence, Faulkner) have used techniques of omission productively, evoking uncertainty to achieve aesthetic ends.

In light of Hans Jauss's reception theory, the fabliau can be seen as an evolving genre of social satire with humor deriving from the discrepancy between the behavior of social climbers and society's expectations. Treats Chaucer's fabliaux and…

Explores the figural significance of the veil, the earthly body of Christ, as projected in the garments of the "Pearl" maiden and of Griselda in ClT.

Examines CT in light of medieval discourses on allegory and of modern theories (exegetical, deconstructive, Bakhtinian), considering framework, prologues, and tales, especially WBT,PardT, and CYT. Also discussed are ParsT, Ret, Th, MkT, FrT, SumT,…

Although recent criticism tends to classify Chaucer as an Ockhamist/nominalist, a close study of his most philosophical poem, TC, indicates that his thought was traditional and scholastic.