Browse Items (16381 total)

Compares the aesthetic experiences of confronting two illustrated editions of Chaucer as reproduced in facsimile, arguing that the Eric Gill edition of CT provides greater pleasure to a modern user than does William Morris' edition of Chaucer.

In Anel, Chaucer worked out his strategy of pitting profeminist impulses (the poet assumes the voice of the betrayed woman) against antifeminist allegory "in which men's betrayal of women represents poetic language's necessary betrayal of literal…

Examines Lydgate's "Troy Book" as "as a vehicle to propagate the idea that the House of Lancaster is the legitimate successor to King Richard II in order to smooth over the usurpation of 1399." Acknowledges that "Chaucer had a definitive impact on…

In his modernization of WBT, John Dryden diminishes the "egalitarian" views of Chaucer's original and presents an outlook that is distinctly less feminist.

Examines fictional representations of Troy as England's mythic ancestor in TC, HF, Gower's Vox Clamantis, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other works. Since Troy was thought to have led to later empires only through its fall, the city is an…

TC may usefully be regarded as a utopian fiction that attempts to repress undesirable historical events by situating itself at a time before those events, thus opening up a moment of freedom in which the hope for a different, better future is…

Documents evidence of women's participation in the uprising of 1381, considering judicial records, chronicles by Henry Knighton and Thomas Walsingham, and poetic depictions by Chaucer and Gower. In the chase scene of NPT, Chaucer depicts women as…

Federico combines historicism and psychoanalysis to explore the "fascination with Troy" in late-medieval England as a "symbolic appropriation" and a means of establishing English identity. Examines the gendered representations of Troy in Gower's "Vox…

Discusses, on the one hand, psychoanalytic approaches to literature, femininity, and various aspects of Troilus and the narrator of TC; and, on the other hand, historicism, masculinity, and other features of Troilus and the narrator. Points out…

Federico explores how "Ricardian court culture haunts the chivalric spaces inhabited and visited by" Chaucer's TC and by Gawain in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Parallels between the "moral lapses" of Richard II and those of the two protagonists…

The program of illustrations in the unique witness to "La Crónica Troyana de Alfonso XI" inadvertently undermines Alphonso XI's efforts to situate his people and himself within a "heroic, even mythical, past" and predicts the tragedy that would…

Treats TC and Thomas Walsingham's "Ditis ditatus" as the two major Troy narratives of late fourteenth-century England, considering the influences of Dictys and Dares (along with Boccaccio) on the two works, and focusing on their depictions of various…

Includes discussion of MilT, arguing that it "participates in the scandalous discourse on the perceived problem of Richard II's deviant sexuality," reading the scene of the hot coulter as an echo of the sodomitical execution of Edward II that engages…

Studies the works of Thomas Walsingham for their importance in the field of late fourteenth-century English "public classical literature," helping to define this field by focusing on nuances in Walsingham's treatments of political events in…

Offers documentary evidence that roads, markets, and taverns were "conduits for and symbols of" class mobility/motility and rebellious tidings in post-Uprising medieval England, especially in Kent and on the Canterbury road. Against this background,…

Thirteen essays by various authors on representations of Troy and the Trojan War in medieval works, with an introduction by the editors. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Troja Bauen under Alternative Title.

Approaches Mel as a mirror for princes, concerned with the power of lordship and the value and function of proverbs and didactic literature. Includes several classroom projects and questions for discussion.

Explores the "means and purposes" of Latin literary education in late medieval England, examining the "subject position" imagined for school children in pedagogical materials. Also comments on how Chaucer and Langland evoke a "grammatical nostalgia"…

Surveys the multicultural nature of medieval British literature, which combines Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Christian influences. Introduces the myths and heroic figures of pre-Christian cultures through synopses of various narratives and…

The squire in GP wears red and white apparel which critics generally associate with springtime and fashionable dress. Because soon-to-be knights wore these colors in the medieval knighting ritual, this chivalric association of the colors further…

With the introduction of "Jakke Straw" into NPT, Chaucer returns to the English setting of the early Canterbury stories. By alternating styles in the peasant passages and the chicken passages, he both addresses the historical turmoil of the day and,…

Readers who refuse to recognize Pandarus's incestuous desire risk participating in the denial of such desire in patriarchal societies; they also risk colluding in society's invocation of the incest taboo, which underlies traffic in women.

Studying CT alongside early and late versions of the Wycliffite Bible reveals examples of Chaucer's nearly direct quotations from LV and of his sympathy with developments in translation theory from EV to LV, which favored more idiomatic renderings of…

Studied in the context of bird debates, of works by Andreas Capellanus and Machaut, and of Chaucer's own KnT, WBT, and FranT, PF shows generic mastery and artistic integrity.

After a wide variety of classical treatments, Medea was transformed through the medieval concept of "fin' amor." Although her earthly passion is negatively contrasted with divine love in some works, she is canonized as a saint of love in LGW and in…