Browse Items (16470 total)

Includes discussion of feigned conversion and the Sultaness in MLT, arguing that she "represents insecurity over the status of religious converts" rather than being merely villainous.

Includes discussion of LGW, arguing that its narrator "frustrates love conventions that are constructed around the author's presumed heteronormativity" and "privileges literary learning over lived experience within a gendered hierarchical structure."

Includes discussion of TC, arguing that the "ironies and games" in the poem "show how closely amorous pursuits may tread to modern conceptions of rape" and depict courtship as a "zero sum game in which each winning move is a loss."

Uses medieval and modern translation theories to consider Old and Middle English narratives about the origins of English Christianity; includes discussion of MLT and its "unveiling of the hidden inclination toward Christianity among the people of…

Includes discussion of the version of ParsT in Longleat, MS 29, a compilation of devotional works where Chaucer's name is "cut from the tale and the work presented in an unambiguously religious context."

Chapter 2 discusses the Wife of Bath's "unique approach to her fourth husband's death as she balances her postmortem responsibilities to him with her immediate remarriage,' acting with "concern" while also "tending to her own wishes."

Intersectional analysis of four character types in medieval romance. Includes discussion of the loathly lady, WBT, and its analogues, arguing that Chaucer's version offers a figure of power, ambiguous because we remain "unsure whether she will use…

Explores "the complex role of maternal power as it relates to male aristocratic identity" in several romances in Middle English, including MLT and ClT.

Assesses aspects of translation theory and presents a translation of Shin Jae Hyo's version of the "p'ansori Shimcheongga," "rendered in the form of an estranging dialogue with Geoffrey Chaucer . . . in order to interrupt the mechanical forms that…

Studies obedience in Middle English literature, including discussion of the theme in LGW and Ovid's "Tristia" and comparison of ClT and "Pearl" as works which indicate that imperfect obedience "is as culturally and theologically important and perhaps…

Argues for using "a Bernardine anagogical lens" to assess theological depth in CT and "Piers Plowman," and traces allusions and references to Bernard of Clairvaux in "Piers," ParsT, and the "Prick of Conscience.."

Considers the addition of medical terminology to the lexicons of medieval laypeople, with particular regard to its use in metaphor. Authors under consideration include Chaucer, Henryson, Rolle, and Kempe.

Examines treatment of several CT narrators and characters and sees examples of "othering" and hostile prejudice toward those characters. Proceeds from there to possible continuations of those prejudices in contemporary readings.

Argues that Chaucer "contextualizes virtues through narrative." Provides close study of Chaucer's treatment of virtues and ethics in CT and TC.

Examines "the semantics and pragmatics of nouns that denote gender and social status in Chaucer's literature, e.g., "knyght," "lady," "leche," "wyf '," focusing on MerT, FranT, ABC, and TC, but addressing most of Chaucer's works.

Examines answers to prayer in BD, HF, KnT, FranT, "hagiographic tales" (SNT, PrT, MLT, and ClT), and TC, arguing that Chaucer engages significant "theological and philosophical issues."

Argues that "by subverting traditional literary genres, and inventing new ones, Chaucer provided alternative life-views," reframing traditional views of eroticism in CT (KnT, MilT, RvT, WBPT, PhyT, ShT) and TC.

Considers joy to be the "climactic centre" of TC, addressing the presence and forms of joy "in the poem's construction of language, themes, and characters" and assessing "whether joy, in medieval culture, is a physical emotion, an affective state, a…

Includes commentary on the "figure of Pluto" in MerT.

Considers Chaucer as part of a larger discussion of medieval ideas of the physical damage that accrued from travel, both in the sense of a literal pilgrimage and in tropes including the "wandering heart."

Studies the portrayals of alchemy and alchemists in fourteenth-and fifteenth-century English verse, including discussion of Chaucer's negative depiction of alchemy and its practitioners in CYPT, and John Gower's positive view in "Confessio Amantis."

Argues from linguistic evidence that Pratt is wrong when hypothesizing that Chaucer used a French version of the Troy story.

Argues that Chaucer's texts engage translation as a political tool. Rom indicates a balance of resistance to France and outreach to its cultural products; Bo can be read as suspicious of royal power during the late Ricardian period; and ClT…

Asserting the impossibility of a neutral approach and citing her Jewish ancestry, Paley considers PrT in its historical context.

Studies the "sociology of evil," organizing the discussion by the traditional Seven Deadly Sins and exploring social, psychological, historical, legal, and political concepts of evil. The section on pride includes "A Medieval Excursus: Chaucer's…