Discusses animals as symbols in medieval culture and includes four essays that consider works by Chaucer. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Animals in the Middle Ages under Alternative Title.
ClT and MLT dramatize contemporary uncertainties concerning the extent of a mother's genetic "influence" on her offspring, even as they critique the "fantasy of an autonomous male line." Given that disputes regarding monarchal succession formed the…
Offers a theoretical model for representing language--both oral and literary--and analyzes various modes of discourse such as direct discourse, free indirect discourse, dual voicing, etc. Observes at one point (p. 369) that "Chaucer's free indirect…
Fludernik, Monika.
Gerd Bayer and Ebbe Klitgård, eds. Narrative Developments from Chaucer to Defoe (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 40-59.
Compares the ways narratives deal with interiority before and after the year 1500, noting an increase in the use of metaphorical language and allegories of the characters' emotions.
Fludernik, Monika.
David Herman, ed. The Emergence of Mind: Representations of Consciousness in Narrative Discourse in English (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), pp. 69-100.
Shows that modern understandings of and distinctions among speech, thought, and signifying gesture do not necessarily obtain in Middle English discourse, and that Middle English literature "displays much more extensive narrative depictions of…
Fludernik, Monika.
Anglistik: Mitteilungen des Verbandes deutscher Anglisten 34 (2023): 77-100.
Uses the term "narrator" as a technical term to refer to "the contours of the narratorial functions and the textual voice as these are inscribed," focusing on "expansion of narratorial functions" in fifteenth-century English hagiography. Includes…
Mel suggests that interpretative perspective is crucial to meaning. Like the rest of fallen nature, language is indeterminate, so prudence is required to make sense of contingent existence. Apparent contradictions in Mel disappear if we understand…
Folch-Pi, Willa Babcock.
Notes and Queries 212 (1967): 10-11.
Translates a passage from Ramon Llull's thirteenth-century "De les Maravalles del Mon" (also known as "Felix" or "Livre de Meravalles") that has "marked similarities" with the account of the first deception in CYT.
Foley, Robert A.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 2228A.
In "The Boke of Fame," Richard Pynson published Chaucer's HF, PF, and Truth, plus Chaucerian apocrypha and five additional poems. Foley explores Pynson's life, examines manuscripts and editions, investigates authorship, scrutinizes alterations,…
Like Chaucer's pilgrimage, community colleges accept all comers and promise a miraculous transformation of a clientele representing a cross-section of society. The student-pilgrims prefer the spoken to the written word, requiring frequent reading…
Folks, Cathalin Buhrmann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 2062A.
Neither WBT nor "Gawain" presents straightforward satire on late-fourteenth-century English romance. At once ironic and idealistic, the two works provide a human redefinition of the genre as exemplified in contemporary chivalric writing.
Folks, Cathalin Buhrmann.
Eilean Ni Cuilleanain and J.D. Pheifer, eds. Noble and Joyous Histories: English Romances, 1375-1650 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993), pp. 59-85.
The "Gawain" poet and Chaucer (through the mediating Wife of Bath) modify conventional details of character, description, and action, producing protagonists who develop or who come to self-awareness in ways more complicated than elsewhere in the…
Fontecedro, Emanuela Andreoni.
Italica 88 (2011): 335-52.
Considers intertextual relations between Petrarch's "Africa" and Cicero's "Somnium Scipionis" as dream visions, focusing on the medieval poet's developments of the ancient poet's concern with fame and contempt for the world. Closes with comments on…
Fonzo, Kimberly.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022.
Examines how Langland, Gower, and Chaucer--who approached Ricardian prophetic discourse in different ways--were later co-opted as prophets of various events and outlooks: Langland foretelling the English Reformation, Gower predicting the deposition…
In MilT, Alison resists Absolon's efforts to compel her to perform courtly behavior and chooses her "own predicates" of behavior, thus establishing her identity and coercing Absolon to abandon his failed courtly role.
Capacious anatomy of Middle English literature, with a variety of essays by individual authors; a selection of lyrics, narrative poems, and dramas; suggestions for further readings, and comprehensive index. The selection includes no works by…
Anatomizes Middle English poetry, with fourteen essays by various authors on various literary topics (one on architecture by Nikolaus Pevsner), selections from Middle English verse, brief lives of the writers, suggestions for further readings, and a…
Presents an understanding of the rules of law, chivalry, and inheritance in "The Tale of Gamelyn." Demonstrates how these rules account for its apparent narrative (and, by extension, aesthetic) inconsistencies by showing how a knowledge of…
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.
Forgeng, Jeffrey L., and Will McLean.
Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 2009.
Updates and expands the first edition (1995), adding "primary source sidebars in all chapters" and a guide to digital resources. This social history of late medieval England has as its goal the creative re-creation of the period, providing a…
