Browse Items (16381 total)

Invoking "Derridean models," Leicester examines the problem of evolution of medieval manuscripts. With its possibility of "univocal meaning," "logocentric" oral literary culture flattens out the difference between composer and audience; the scribal…

Thirteen essays by various hands. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Ambiguous Realities under Alternative Title.

Moore studies the influence of varied forms of dramatic presentation on Chaucer, Langland, and the "Gawain"-poet; significant use of voice and gesture is implied in their work although the poets were aware of a new audience of readers.

Discusses pedagogical techniques for teaching vocabulary study and translation and recitation of Chaucer's language.

Palmer reviews modern critical methods (including Robertsonianism) designed to close "the gap between the pastness of ancient texts and the modern context of their reading and analysis."

Considers "political agendas" that governed the development of Chaucer scholarship and textual criticism and analyzes medieval studies in terms of current theories about historicism. CT bears "a privileged relation" to the historic moment. Chapters…

Examines through the eyes of modern poets the ability of medieval imagination "to bridge gaps gracefully between the poets and the world around them"--addressing "all varieties of experience, aspiration, and frustration," often through fresh and…

Originating as a device of classical rhetoric, the exemplum became a genre in its own right through the church. Preachers brought it to a lay audience, and poets (Gower, Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Lydgate) eventually secularized it in various ways.

Chaucer adapts the conventional dawn-song contrast between work and love as activities appropriate to day and night, respectively, in TC and the fabliaux, where "bisynesse" is used to connote lovemaking as the proper work of the night.

Schmidt considers Langland's "attitude to the moral and artistic demands of his poem," his versecraft, his use of medieval Latin quotations and works on the art of poetry, and his diction, puns, and rhetorical art. Contains brief references to…

Verse translations of Boccaccio's sixteen Latin "Eclogues," with facing texts reprinted from the edition of Massera (1928); also a substantial critical introduction and extensive notes on allegory and mythological references in each poem.

By eclectic approaches that borrow techniques from "modern literary theory, film analysis, sociolinguistics, and social anthropology" and that use historical views of medieval ideas and practice, Spearing illuminates a number of medieval poems,…

Traversi discusses the English language and medieval poetics--Chaucer's givens--and proceeds to trace Chaucer's development as a poet through BD, HF, PF, and TC. Because the language was an imperfect instrument, Chaucer's early poems are tentative.

Argues that modern theoretical discourse, in particular affective criticism--reader-response theory and "rezeptions-asthetik" (which "emphasizes the historicity and alterity of literary works from the past")--derives from and is applicable to…

A new verse translation of "Pearl" with original Middle English text and modern English version on facing pages. Contains a brief preface and longer introduction, which discusses current scholarship and criticism.

Way studies Chaucer's "trouthe" as meaning both troth and truth, with consequent conflicts arising in his poetry. In TC, "trouthe" is kept by silence even when the "trouthe" is broken. Absolute troth keepers (Griselda, Virginia) suffer. Truth…

Explores the interplay between allegory as a "strategy for interpreting texts" and allegory as a "method for composing" in classical and medieval literature. Touches on HF, MerT, and PF.

Summarizes and evaluates critical approaches to CT; explores pervasive ideas of the work, notably "entente," and offers "excess and restraint" as keys to interpretation. Treats GP Franklin, WBT, CYT, MerT, KnT, PardP, MilT, and FranT.

Teaching CT at the undergraduate level both as literature and as social and political history challenges student responses, questions the idea of Chaucerian character, and raises methodological problems.

The strictly medieval method of casting and interpreting horoscopes shows--in the developing dialectic of free will, Providence, and neccessity--the shortcomings of some CT pilgrims too worldly for ideal pilgrimage.

Drawing on medieval music, iconography, typology, and anthropology, Holloway uses "medieval theory and practice of pilgrimage" to illuminate the "Commedia," "Piers Plowman," and CT. Explains why each author made himself a pilgrim in his own book.

Deconstructive readings of CT can reopen the study of historical "particulars," allowing readings from various interpretative communities. Instead of generalized acceptance of "the medieval world view" or of direct historical references suggesting…

Though deconstruction is a useful tool for breaking down troublesome parts of CT, its "wholesale use" in the interpretation of Chaucer's poetry does great discredit to the author. Deconstructive criticism tends to place any author in a position…

In ParsP, ParsT, and Ret, we are "forced to confront" the textuality of CT; the "various conflicting interpretations" are conditioned by habitual responses to CT. Four standard approaches to ParsT--absolute, ironic, dualistic, and textual--result in…

Examines Chaucer's use of contemporary oral material and traditions of play in CT, especially by the churls. In part 1, Lindahl examines the "shapes of play and society": community of players, role of the pilgrim, shape of performance, and…