Browse Items (16472 total)

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…

Representations of Mary in medieval literature are paradoxical, often underscored by her opposition to Eve. MLT and the hagiography Seinte Marherete seek to present a unified view of Mary but ultimately fail; WBPT and Pearl are more sensitive to the…

Surveys the history of approaches to Chaucer's meter and critiques individual approaches. Proposes principles of Chaucer's tetrameter and pentameter, focusing on syntactic inversions and phrase boundaries. Chaucer's verse developed from rough…

The proof of masculinity by man-to-man combat continues to fascinate modern writers, though as early as Chaucer the duel had been perceived as inherently wrong.

Considers biblical, historical, traditional, and hagiographical accounts of conversion, exploring Chaucer's appropriation of them to psychologize courtly love or "'fin'amors' as a surrogate religion" in TC.

Though the printing press and the Reformation have long been assumed to have altered radically the concepts of reader and writing, the persistence of the architectural trope in literature indicates that technology was less important than…

Lollard insistence on plain speech brought about a split between plain and literary language that persisted into the sixteenth century. Harris considers the "Pearl" poet and the fifteenth-century reception of Chaucer.

Free indirect discourse appears in TC and in works by John Lyly and George Gascoigne primarily for dramatic effects. Multiple voices in free indirect discourse may also mimic, distance, and achieve irony, as in many novels of the nineteenth and…

Examines the rise of professionalism and women's efforts to achieve autonomy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England as represented in the mystery cycles, Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and Margery Kempe.

In his first three dream visions, Chaucer employed traditional form to transcend the genre, exploring poetic authority and ironic possibilities.

Examines how late-medieval changes in audience and breadth of subject transformed responses to exemplary literature, exploring "Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry," Caxton's translation of it, and works of Gower, Chaucer (PhyT, PardT,and TC), and…

Law and its applications influence literary audiences, and Chaucer exploits the possibilties variously. In KnT, trial by combat fails to effect closure; Theseus must intervene. Melibee's final verdict acts similarly in Mel. In SumT, however, the…

As diplomat, MP, and associate of important political figures, Chaucer understood the operation of government and its rhetoric, reflected in Mel, MLT, ClT, KnT, and MerT. Chaucer's themes of class and gender relate to the nature of counsel-taking.

Literary uses of play and game both subvert and reinforce social order while encouraging readers to become involved. Medieval works tend to relate chivalry and war to game and play, while Platonism questions their value. Considers TC among works…

In patriarchal tradition, the Christian is defined as male and spiritual; the female, as Other, Hebrew, and carnal. Lampert traces tensions in the parallel between women and Jews from Bernard de Clairvaux to Shakespeare's Shylock, including medieval…

Ancient writings, especially inscriptions in stone, impressed the medieval reader as the most reliable of records of past wisdom, even though they might be paradoxical or, eventually, disregarded. Considers "Queste del Saint Graal," HF, and…