Browse Items (16533 total)

Assesses various possible analogues to details in the naval battle depicted in LGW (648-49; Cleopatra)--the use of "pesen"(peas) and "lyme" (lime)--suggesting that the closest analogue is in a 1572 masque by George Gascoigne. Also suggests that…

Identifies an overlooked resource for the study of the sources and analogues of SNT: H. Delehaye's 1936 "Etude sur le legendier romain, les saints de Novembre et de Decembre" (Bruxelles, 1936).

Rejects arguments that references to "Sittingbourne" at WBT (3.847), "towne" in SumT (3.2294), and "Rouchestre" (7.1926) are inconsistent with the order of CT found in the Ellesmere manuscript, claiming that "towne" is a "tag-word" that does not…

Suggests that the repeated emphasis on the motive of covetousness in PardP is intended as the "revenge of irony" by the Pardoner, a response to the other pilgrims' negative opinion of him.

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Compares and contrasts the GP descriptions of the Prioress and the Second Nun and the style and details of PrPT and the SNPT. Argues that genuine humility and "restraint" evokes "the truer religious character" of the Second Nun, casting into relief…

Claims that Aurelius prays to Apollo for assistance in FranT 5.1031ff. because he "seeks to violate the heroine's [Dorigen's] chastity."

Explicates the claim about debt in the description of the Merchant (GP 1.280), arguing on logical and metrical grounds--and using comparable lines from elsewhere in Chaucer (especially TC 3.267-70)--that the Merchant was not "insolvent," i.e., "he…

Confirms that the friar's kiss of Thomas' wife in SumT is unseemly, adducing passages from Gower's "Vox Clamantis" and the "Regimen Animarum" that express concern about dangers of clerical kissing.

Locates precedent for the Parson's claim about the growth of sin among humans in Richard de Wetheringsett's "Summa de Officio Sacerdotis"--specifically, its reference to the "Canticum Exodi" in Exodus 15.9. Suggests more broadly that an "English…

Assesses "various appearances of the narrator" in CT to "determine how far the narrator can be taken as a contribution to our knowledge of Geoffrey Chaucer." Comments most extensively on GP and ThP, with attention to first-person pronouns, and on…

Quotes two allusions to Chaucer in letters by Robert Browning from 1845 and 1846.

Quotes from published letters of Theodore Roosevelt (8 Volumes, 1951–1954) which express his opinions about Chaucer (e.g., SumT is "filthy") and Chaucer studies, especially that of Thomas R. Lounsbury (1892).

Assesses the sequence and nuances of the terms used to justify Henry IV's claim to the English throne--election, inheritance, and conquest--in Chaucer's Purse and John Gower's "Cronica Tripertita," comparing them with historical documents that…

Emphasizes the role of Harry Bailly in Chaucer's characterization of the Nun's Priest, reading "broad irony" in NPE, despite its limited manuscript support. Addresses many of Harry's comments throughout Part 7, focusing on how the Host's displeasure…

Surveys the influence on Chaucer's works (mostly TC and CT) of the writings of the Church Fathers, especially Jerome and Augustine, focusing in separate chapters on shared notions of "the treatment of marriage and virginity," divine and profane love,…

Sets Chaucer in the context of English literary history, comments on his biography, and commends "his two great masterpieces," TC and CT, summarizing plots and themes and commenting on his "poetic art": "he lacks sublimity," but "his sympathetic…

Challenges Matthew Arnold's claim that Chaucer lacks "high seriousness," arguing that Chaucer's "Christian point of view" reflects seriousness beyond either comedy or tragedy, expressing pity and love for the human condition and humble acceptance of…

Explores five passages from CT that stylistically and thematically "expose the limited vision of created character and creating narrator," pose the comic "contrast between what 'is' and what men see--of themselves and of others," and serve a…

Assesses in PF the narrator's limitations as a lover, his inability to "interpret or evaluate what he sees," and his "naïveté" as a poet--a reflection of Chaucer's own "amused understanding of the limitations of the love vision as a form for poetic…

Glosses "hevenlich mede" in Truth (line 27) as "heavenly meadow" rather than "heavenly reward," adducing phonology and puns elsewhere in the poem.

Argues that the unifying concern of HF is "the relationship of men to the mutable world through the agency of Fame," assessing similarities with BD and PF as love-visions, the influences of Dante and Boethius, and connections among the "sister…

Resists the emendatory tendency to adjust the Black Knight's age from 24 to 29 in order to align it with the age of John of Gaunt when Blanche died, suggesting that the poem is universal not "merely occasional."

Argues that ManPT combines with ParsPT and Ret to make a thematic grouping in CT, arguing that the fundamental theme of ManT is avoiding "jangling" or "loose speaking," including "frivolous story-telling." Also considers the dating of ManT and the…

Compares SumT with analogous tales of the "Lover's Gift Regained," arguing that the comparison reveals the "sardonicism" of Chaucer's account. Suggests that this tone culminates in the sexual punning on "tallying" and "tailing" in 3.416 and 433-34…