Browse Items (16381 total)

Examines the Prioress's claim that she is unequal to the task of praising Mary as an example of the inexpressibility topos, used recurrently in the Middle Ages to express the ineffable. Comments on several instances of the topos used by theologians…

Jungian psychological analysis of the character of January, arguing that he shows the characteristics of the introverted type--capacity for abstraction, extreme subjectivity, and a resultant poor grasp of the outside world. January has trouble…

The narrator of TC has two functions: structurally, he acts as a narrative device which, via book and scene division, lends dramatic immmediacy to Chaucer's romantic drama; he also is a "dramatis persona" characterized by his very use of narrative…

Examines the role of Dryden's conversion to Roman Catholicism in his literary career, with reference to his adaptations of Chaucer, expecially his recasting of the Parson.

Seeks to define the phrase "Canterbury tale," by exploring the relative usefulness of various critical approaches to Chaucer's tales. Comments on how the tales engage their respective genres in "unpredictable" ways, how they characterize their…

In TC, 5.804, Diomede is said to be "of tonge large," a phrase that perhaps owes a debt to the "Aeneid" (9.338), where Drances is described as "largus opum et lingua melior." Koch's view in "Chaucers Belesenheit in den romischen Klassikern" that…

In TC 5.543, the use of the participle "queynt" (quenched) may have been meant by Chaucer as a pun on the noun "queynt" (pudendum). Although the pun may have been intentional, it is irrelevant to the passage in which it appears, syntactically…

Raises questions about what it means to be modern in one own's time and about polyphony (including polyphonic music, polyvocality, and literary dialogism) as an index to modernity, collecting fourteen essays on relevant topics, most of them on…

Middle English text and French translation of TC, with introduction and commentary in French. Includes a chronology of Chaucer's life; a bibliography; and indices of names, places, and works.

Middle English edition and French translation of BD, HF, Anel, and PF, with introduction and commentary in French.

Traces the history of English from earlier times to Chaucer's age to reveal Chaucer's facility with language, focusing on his powerful and special words. Refers to J. R. R. Tolkien's 1934 lecture to the Philological Society, and claims that Chaucer…

Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate that this is a version of the author's 2014 doctoral dissertation.

Traces the "motif of visible speech" in HF, identifying its source in Dante's "Divine Comedy," and exploring its relations with questions of literary transmission, especially in depictions of the story of Dido, the eagle's speech, and the House of…

Explores Chaucer's uses of "fama," perhaps reflecting his ambiguous relationship with the concept. At times, he seems to switch from desire of acknowledgment to a more bitter view.

Explores the implications of ascent and descent in MerT, focusing on the significance of the tale's vacillations between courtliness and the fabliau genre in comparison with several analogous narratives that include fruit-tree episodes. In French,…

Examines the depiction of the Pardoner in PardT as a reflection of Chaucer's own ideas about spirituality. Contends that Chaucer's portraits of the religious pilgrims in GP showcase several types of spirituality and argues that the poet seems to…

Argues that Chaucer's work "contributed to the birth of English polyphonic verse," a claim supported through discussions of Mikhail Bakhtin and the growth of scholasticism, debate, and music. Connects Chaucer's verse, including BD, HF, TC, and CT, to…

Argues that "Chaucer's decision to write in Middle-English . . . was consistent with an intellectual movement that was trying to give back to European vernaculars the prestige necessary to a genuine cultural production, which eventually led to the…

Clarifies the "centrality and complexities" of political and ethical law discourse in late medieval England, showing how it is used in works by Thomas Usk and how in TC and KnT Chaucer "questions the view that the natural law is an unshakeable…

HF demonstrates metaphorically the unreliability of the transmission of knowledge. Chaucer makes the point by abruptly cutting off the authority figure at the end.

Considers manuscript variants of MkT and NPP, historical contexts of various details, and the dramatic effectiveness of the interruption that bridges the two. Argues that the so-called "Modern Instances" should conclude the Monk's sequence of…

Proposes that Cicero's "De Inventione" is the source of TC 4.407-13; the subsequent reference (4.414-15) to "Zanzis" is Chaucer's corruption of "Zeuxis."

Chaucer is aware of poetic or aureate diction but seldom uses it. He is "essentially a poet of 'occupatio'." Language change rapidly made Chaucer's meter difficult to imitate, even for Lydgate. Like other writers, Chaucer introduces new Latinate…

Critiques the inconsistencies and overall lack of unity in CT, contrasting it with the structural and thematic wholeness of HF and TC, and castigating the sententiousness of Mel, ParsT, and Ret. Attributes the lack of unity and the inconclusiveness…

Argues that Chaucer perceives a tension in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" regarding the role of romantic love in the relation of this world to the divine. Chaucer envisages a version of romantic love that is a bridge between this world and…