Browse Items (16472 total)

Examines medieval notions of poetics and faculty psychology as approaches to BD, HF, PF, and LGWP.

Olsen argues that TC is an effort to "use poetry as a spiritual instrument," specifically in an attempt to link "celestial and earthly loves."

Discusses how PF, "The Assembly of Ladies," and "The Owl and the Nightingale" reflect late medieval court proceedings, gender issues, and eschatology.

Considers Chaucer's vernacular poetry as part of the discourse on "vestimentary appearance and consumption."

Examines treatment of Theban/Oedipal myth in Chaucer, Lydgate, and Shakespeare.

CT--in part a reaction to Gower's conservative conception of vernacular literature in "Confessio Amantis"--is a text encouraging interpretive autonomy.

Examines the development of Belial as a personification of the power of rhetoric to deceive; discusses Chaucer's Pardoner as an example.

Argues that Chaucer "uses prophecy as a way of proposing alternate, flexible modes of reading."

Symons compares and contrasts "literary" works (including Th and WBT) with popular romances, considering the differing appeals of the forms.

Examines the relationship between humor and religious rhetoric in a variety of texts, including CT, BD and TC.

Discusses Mel as a medieval critique of the interplay between the justice system and the practice of livery and maintenance.

In an argument that medieval writers gendered undesirable aspects of pagan beliefs as feminine, Shutters examines Griselda in ClT.

Suggests that TC and WBP argue for a diachronic understanding of time-as-phenomenon, as opposed to the religious emphasis on eternity over temporality.

Moore shows that medieval poems (including Chaucer's) "exploit the less-determined systems of medieval speech marking for aesthetic and rhetorical purposes."

Ganze discusses concepts and manifestations of "trouthe" in MLT, ClT, and FranT.

In exploring development of the word/concept "womanhood," Williams discusses KnT and ClT, as well as works by Gower, Lydgate, Henryson, Kempe, and Julian of Norwich.

As part of a larger discussion of medieval estate management and its literary representations, Morris examines the character of Piers Plowman and Chaucer's Oswald the Reeve.

Passmore engages WBT as part of a longer examination of the Loathly Lady motif in English and Irish texts, stories, and fabula.

Chapter 2 examines two views of CT in eighteenth-century England: as a philologist's "historical foundation in need of preservation" and as "merchandise facilitating social refinement."

Considers representations of noble counselors to royalty in GP (the Knight), MerT, and Mel, among others, arguing that writers such as Chaucer and Langland demonstrate faith in this "traditional institution."

Anger "rises to the level of a philosophical and ethical problem for Chaucer." An understanding of the role anger plays in the formation of self and community is useful in understanding the communities Chaucer creates and examines in CT.

Considers Chaucer's rendition of Lucrece (in LGW) as part of a series of narratives that transform Lucrece's story into a text that "reveal[s] an evolving patriarchal ideology."

In a larger discussion of women's letter-writing, Sadlack notes that "Ovid, Chaucer, and Gower suggest that letters are often the best means for women to communicate."

Examines the concepts of "change and eschaunge" in Middle English poetry, with particular attention to Langland's Lady Meed, Gower's Constance, Criseyde from TC, and Lady Bertilak in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Considers instability and…

Considers BD and Pearl as case studies in the search for "an appropriate, adequate language of commemoration," as opposed to prior models of elegiac language.