Browse Items (16382 total)

Reads PF as a "poem of love and marriage, touching upon the question of pleasure versus the duty of procreation, realistically set in the framework of a dream, and seasoned with wit." Emphasizes the poem's balanced sensibility and "refreshing…

Traces the development of the "sermo humilis" tradition in literature and the visual arts as a context for Chaucer's uses of "pathetic style" in the Ugolino episode of MkT, PrT, PhyT, and MLT, arguing that these accounts reflect the evolution of…

Considers Chaucer's realism, seeking to define it "inductively" through close reading of GP, the links between the tales, and the "confessional monologues" of CT. Focuses on concrete descriptions, dialogue, and "haphazard organization and…

Examines the progressions of events in various French and English Breton Lays; includes commentary on repetition as a narrative technique that leads to closure in FranT.

Reads TC as a critique of the "old tragic idea" of fall through fortune, emphasizing the poem's concern with human choice derived from Boethius's "Consolation," and observing a "Boethian comedy" in Troilus and a "Boethian tragedy" in Criseyde. TC…

Quantitative analysis of Chaucer's uses of rhetorical techniques in TC, including "suasive" techniques, proverbial materials, and rhetorical figures.

Alphabetically arranged, cross-listed dictionary of proper names in Chaucer's works.

Focuses on critical commentary on Chaucer by William Godwin, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Walter Savage Landor, concluding with a survey of efforts by Romantic writers to claim that Chaucer shared their outlooks.

DAI citation of 1973 dissertation, completed at Queen's University (Canada).

Identifies the "dark spirit" in MilT, RvT, FrT, SumT, MerT, and ShT, focusing on their "violence, deception, and sense of continual flux rather than their comedy.

Considers Chaucer's diminishing use of classical stories in various stages of his "development as a creative artist," focusing on the rise of realism in his works.

Contends that Chaucer uses and supersedes the conventions of the classical "exordium" and of medieval prologues in HF, the proems of TC, LGWP, and GP.

Argues that gestures and postures of the three main characters in MerT contribute to the realism and harshness of the tale.

Reads ParsT as "just another tale" (rather than the crescendo of CT), adducing Boethian aesthetic and moral attitudes, Aristotelian poetics, and the sequence of the last four tales as evidence that we should read the penitential message of ParsT…

Claims that Chaucer is a "rationalistic" poet, and suggests prospects for assessing Chaucer's use of dialectic or the "scholastic mode of reasoning" in his art, commenting on aspects of GP, ParsT, Mel, WBPT, Bo, TC, and HF.

Attends to the details and imagery of old age in MerT in order to clarify the "precision and complexity" of Chaucer's art, commenting on January's name, age (60 years), physical condition, sexual prowess, attitude toward counsel, etc., and exploring…

Studies the "ape-image" in HF 1212, identifying analogues in Dante's "Inferno" and in Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose," and observing that the topos poses the "difficulty of distinguishing true from false, original from imposture," and art from…

Surveys the uses of personal names of the Canterbury pilgrims and of the major characters in the tales, commenting on names adapted from sources, common names, diminutives and name variants, given names and surnames, name-play, the relative paucity…

Argues that BD is not a traditional consolation but rather a "poetic monument in honor of Blanche." The poem's narrator is "singularly unfitted for the role of comforter" and inconsistent with the poet's own self-consciousness as an artist.

Identifies lines from Machaut's "La Fonteinne Amoureuse" and from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" as direct sources of words and details in BD.

Compares and contrasts Pandarus's wooing of Criseyde (for Troilus) with Diomede's, assessing their patterns and details for the ways they reflect the design of the poem, its concern with time, and the "unchanged character" of Criseyde.

Explicates several words and images found in MilT--the "piggesnye" of Alison's description most extensively--and identifies echoes of the tale's concern with "poetic justice" in RvT which contributes to the bitterness of the latter.

Reports 106 items.

Shows that the thematic concerns of FrT are evident in its rhyme words, focusing on the occurrences of "entente" and its rhymes: "rente," "hente," and "repente."

Argues that CT reflects "astrological schema" and traces the evidence of a single cycle of the twelve signs in GP (Aries and Taurus), KnT (Gemini), MilT (Cancer), RvT (Leo), CkT (Virgo), MLT (Libra), WBPT (Scorpio), FrT (Sagittarius), SumT…