Browse Items (16472 total)

Suggests on textual and etymological grounds that "verye"/"werye" in MilT 1.3485 be emended to "nerye," reading the line to mean "May the White Pater Noster save (us) from (the perils of the) night."

Anthologizes GP, PardPT, PrPT, MilT, WBPT, ClT, FranT, NPT, and Ret., each with a brief introduction and bottom-of-page glosses. Also introduces Chaucer's life, works, literary techniques, and language, with suggestions for further reading.

Reads PF as Chaucer's "most voluptuous poem," a love poem with the Garden of Love as its unifying center where Nature and Priapus serve as its "presiding deities." Comments on the poem's range of attitudes toward love and its source materials.

Identifies parallels between Browning's "Childe Roland" and HF, evinces Browning's familiarity with Chaucer's poem, and indicates that, thematically, "Roland's quest" represents the "lifelong struggle of a poet in search of lasting fame."

Explores parallels and tensions between earthly and heavenly love in TC, investigating how the theological "doctrine" of grace--inflected by ideas of merit, hope, and despair--is adapted to courtly, earthly conventions in the poem. Focuses on uses of…

Explores the "free-ranging points of view" of the narrator of GP, identifying its conventionality modeled on the "Roman de la Rose" and arguing that Chaucer's various manipulations of first-person and omniscient perspectives in individual…

Shows how Paul Hamilton Hayne adapted FranT in his narrative poem "The Wife of Brittany" (1870), addressing his acknowledgement of Chaucer's influence, and his claims of originality. Focuses on modifications of the main characters, simplification of…

Collects nineteen essays by various authors on topics in medieval and early modern English literature, accompanied by Harden Craig's appreciative essay, "Walter Clyde Curry and Contemporary Scholarship," and a bibliography of Curry's publications…

Suggests that the expansive moralizing about silence at the end of ManT is "directed" by the Manciple "toward the inebriated Cook," effectively linking the GP description of the Manciple, ManP, and ManT.

Argues that the "the bulk of Milton's system of elision was a part of the traditional mechanics of English syllabic verse," detailing the tradition that precedes Milton and Milton's own practices. Chapter 2 analyzes Chaucer's practices in elision,…

Argues that the Reeve's sword is rusty (GP 1.618) "because the Reeve is past the age for using it." Suggests that he wears it as a symbol of his desire for youth and comments on Chaucer's multiple uses of signifying details.

Suggests that "wynne" in TC 1.390 means to "complain," connecting it with rare but similar usage in Old and Middle English.

Identifies parallels between various aspects of PardPT and Master Odo of Cheriton's sermons, and includes passage on pardoners from Cheriton's "Fables." Suggests that these intertextualities, both general and specific, indicate that it is "possible,…

Describes records available in the "Black Prince's Register" that pertain to Walter Roet, a "member of the family into which Chaucer married" and, perhaps, a "brother of Chaucer's wife" Philippa.

Reviews opinions about the textual status of NPE and six additional lines found in four manuscripts of the CT often thought to be spurious. Considering issues of tale order, sequence of composition, dramatic consistency, and authorial or scribal…

Identifies an approximate quotation from Chaucer's Pity in Edward Du Bois's satirical novel, "Old Nick" (1801), and suggests that it is "in all probability the first quotation from Chaucer's works in prose fiction."

Anthologizes selections from poems by British and American writers. arranged alphabetically by author, some accompanied by critical and pedagogical materials. Includes selections from GP: 1-78, 118-62, and 361-92 (opening, Knight, Prioress, and Wife…

Suggests that NPT "reflects . . . the controversy which took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries between the secular clergy and the friars." Adduces use of the name "Russell" and several other parallels with French moralized analogues…

Suggests that "Chauntecleer's dream . . . prophesied the col-fox's attack" in NPT 73215-18, adducing the neo-Platonic tradition that associates "the imagination with prophetic vision through dreams," and noting that Dante uses "alta fantasia" ("high…

Offers historical "bird-lore" as evidence of the poisonousness of the "wariangles" (shrikes, or butcher-birds), cited in the description of the summoner in FrT 3.1408).

Analyzes Chaucer's use of the auxiliary verb "ginnan"/"gan," a periphrastic preterit, in contrast with simple preterits, to produce "distinctions in tempo, intensity, and manner." Comments on examples such as "gan behold"/"beheld", "gan to turne"/…

Suggests that aspects of the ritual of sacramental confession are noticeable in the fabricated version of Troilus's admission of love that Pandarus reports to Criseyde in TC 2.523ff. Also notes other echoes of confession in Books 1 and 2 that…

Item not seen.

Framed as justification for Sir Francis Kynaston's 1636 praise of TC as an epic poem, this essay analyzes themes, characterizations, and the ending of Chaucer's poem in light of Renaissance perspectives, especially on love.

Surveys critics' attention to Chaucer's word-play, and shows through multiple examples that such play is more common in his works than previously observed, especially his early works. Clarifies kinds of word-play in medieval rhetoric and…