Browse Items (16381 total)

A universal theme of metamorphosis, compelled or voluntary, relates to both the natural mutability of human life and the boundaries and hierarchies set by society, as shown in four texts ranging from KnT (Actaeon) through Gower's Ovidian passages,…

William Thynne, the first true editor of Chaucer's oeuvre, performed fewer duties for the royal household than has been believed; thus, he had more time for editing. Familiar with the three previous printings and with many manuscripts, he built on…

Chaucer puts the allegorized Latin epic to various uses in five works: HF, TC, KnT, MilT (as comic and unsuccesful rebellion against the hierarchies of KnT), and LGW

Aware that their husbands (as chosen by their families or communities) will determine the nature of their lives, women have sought to choose their own husbands, a daring assumption of sovereignty in a patriarchal society. The Wife of Bath,…

The world view of the Breton Lay, as conceived by Marie de France, changed little before 1400. In FranT, Chaucer expands the genre with increased emphasis on passionate and "egalitarian" love in marriage, troth, and magnanimity, as solution to the…

Before Richard II's deposition, Chaucer affected an apolitical stance, while Gower became pro-Lancastrain. Poetic self-representation later gave way to politicized views in the works of Hoccleve, Scogan, and Lydgate. The dissertation also treats…

Considers the opposing theories of James Thorpe and G. Thomas Tanselle and emphasizes the need for full understanding of the aesthetic of meter, as with Chaucer's "heroic" line.

Examines right relations of individuals in the medieval Christian hierarchy as shown in the writings of Chaucer, Gower, Langland, the "Pearl" poet, Julian of Norwich, and Guillaume de Deguileville.

The body of Chaucerian apocrypha, "largely ignored" since 1900, deserves reconsideration for its relation to the canon and to Chaucer's reputation. The latter was affected less by the apocrypha than by linguistic factors and changing tastes. …

Analysis based on Michel Foucault and Judith Butler shows that, in a wide variety of medieval texts including CT, the speakers' situations affect their social position and their ability to refashion genres.

The complicated matrix of late-medieval law, with its efforts to seek truth (even by torture), sheds light on the historical dynamics of various works.

CT develops "horror and abjection" through struggles for mastery of many kinds, leaving its characters suspended between the Tabard and Canterbury amid images of mutilation and death. Chaucer critics may also be seen as pilgrims struggling among…

Though Chaucer has been scorned for creating humor, the bulk of CT is serious, and seriousness and humor should no longer be perceived as mutually antagonistic. Chaucer's humor develops as a structuring "glue" arising through literary methods that…

Argues that Gg is the earliest surviving effort to create a corpus of Chaucer's poetry and that codicological analysis of the manuscript reveals much about the reception of Chaucer in the fifteenth century.

Ovid undercuts epic male heroism, treating the emotional cost to the women deserted by Achilles, Theseus, Ulysses, and Aeneas and casting a shadow on these heroes in the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer (KnT, LGW, TC). Bakhtin's views…

Analysis of legal documents and letters (especially treacherous or forged) in Middle English romances reveals that these fictions (including MLT) reflect popular attitudes of the 1300s and 1400s. Though speech had been preferred earlier, written…

Sixteen fifteenth-century CT Tales" manuscripts-- anthologized on the basis of theme, subject, or interest--survive. They reveal middle-class taste through their moral and devotional content and indicate the popularity and availability of…

Examines the relationship of Jacques Lacan's theories to Chaucer's sense of sexuality in NPT, ClT, and WBPT.

Study based on theories of Fowler (genre) and Jakobson (metaphor and metonymy) reveals that English verse romance from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries is typically episodic, with variations attuned to changing intent.

Applies spatial metaphors from contemporary feminist scholarship to medieval texts of various genres, including "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Chretien's "Yvain," TC, the "Life of Christina de Markyate," the "Ancrene Wisse," and the "Book of…

A cross-generic study (excluding drama) of the effects of exile on such diverse characters as the Christian or the secular hero, the lover, and the pilgrim. Discusses works by Chaucer, Gower, and Langland.

Although false relics often figured in polemics, relics were popular through the early Reformation. Attitudes vary less than has been assumed among such writers as Guibert de Nogent, Lorenzo Valla, Wycliffe, Chaucer, Foxe, Latimer, Tyndale, and…

Late-medieval English poets asserted their authorial identity in a commercial environment in various ways, including producing fascicles or pamphlets. Chaucer asserted his authorship through letters (Scog, Buk, and the letters in TC). Horvath also…

Patristic tradition regarded music as both carnal and spirtual, capable of evoking a gamut of emotions. Diatribes against musical innovation parallel those against unconventional sexual practices. Holsinger considers musical imagery in KnT, MilT,…

Identified by Caxton as "historiographs," Chaucer and Langland write as historians and consider the meaning of writing history. In TC, Chaucer discusses sources and antiquity as marks of authority and hindrances to reading. The English literary…