Browse Items (16357 total)

Analyzes how art--canonical literature, in particular--helps to construct, consolidate, and transmit patriarchal ideologies that support violence and female subjection. Assesses KnT as an example of how a masculine gaze affects female identity.…

Einersen examines genre markers in versions of the story of Troilus and Criseyde (including Chaucer's claims for tragedy in TC) as background to a discussion of Shakespeare's play as a "historical-tragical-comical-satirical problem play."

Explores Chaucer's literary self-consciousness by tabulating and analyzing his wide-ranging and complex variety of literary terms, including terms that describe the process of writing and the impact of literature, as well as terms of genre, rhetoric,…

Referring to "The Wife of Bath's Prologue on CD-ROM" (Studies In the Age Of Chaucer 20 [1998], no.11), Blake concludes that Hengwrt should be used as the base text for the "Canterbury Tales" Project. He proposes three areas in which Hengwrt might be…

The combination of genres in MerT (fabliau, encomium, moral allegory, mock-heroic, and parody) satirizes the social institutions and literary genres within which sex and love are contained and represented. The encomium fuses reality and idealization;…

Fichte explores Rome in CT, both as an actual place and as a symbol. Focuses on Rome versus Syria in MLT and Christianity versus paganism in SNT, with comments on the Wife of Bath's and the Pardoner's connections with Rome, as well as orientalism in…

Reevaluation and continuation of the studies by John Burrow and by Richard Firth Green on the meaning of the word "elvish" in CT. "Elvish" in CYT carries the meaning "delusory," whereas elvish in the prologue to Th means "abstracted."

Behrens investigates the problems of authorship surrounding the dedicatory poem "Go litel boke, go litel tregedie" addressed to the four wardens of the mercer guild: John Olney, Geoffrey Feldyng, Geoffrey Boleyn, and John Burton. Alluding to TC, the…

Describes the unique copy of portions of "Sidrak and Bokkus" found in Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam, MS M199, an early modern alchemical miscellany. Accompanying the selections, manuscript annotations refer to a wide variety of…

Examines the righteous-woman-on-trial-motif in "The Earl of Tolous" and its relation to Susanna (Daniel 13) and to medieval romances involving the same motif. By exploiting narrative structure, shifting perspectives and the differing perceptions of…

Identifies various instances of irony in MerT, arguing that its "persistent irony" distinguishes the tale from Chaucer's comic fabliaux and aligns it with the "moral fable" of PardT. A poem of "clarity, critical observation, and disgust," MerT also…

Examines "ironic foreshadowings, ambiguities and reversals" in SumT, arguing that they give it "a subtle and satisfying unity." Focuses on overturned expectations, dramatic ironies, and poetic justice in the plot, in the friar's lecture to Thomas,…

Explores the functions and nuances of the historical present verb tense, focusing on epic scenes in CT (especially KnT and MLT), TC, LGW, and Anel, and assessing how Chaucer's uses of the tense help with vividness, immediacy, and "visualization" of…

Chaucer, possibly familiar with the concept of the "poeta-theologus" current in fourteenth-century Italian poetics, actually structures KnT "in a fashion which parallels or imitates divine creation"; perfection of structural order counters the…

Schowerling investigates the influence of Chaucer's TC on four writers of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Writers and works discussed include Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," Sidnam's paraphrase of TC, Shakespeare's "Troilus and…

The legend of Moses' magic, alluded to in SqT 247-51, first occurs in Peter Comestor's "Historia scholastica." Nicholas Trevet and Gower also mention this motif, but probably Chaucer's source for the allusion is Roger Bacon's "Opus maius."

Using concordances, the MED, and textual variants from the manuscripts, Gretsch clarifies ten passages in Th.

Considers Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" as a tragedy and the role of writing in the demise of the central character. Also explores medieval attitudes toward leprosy, versions of the Criseyde story before Henryson, and Henryson's debt to…

Analyzes spelling in the four printed editions of CT issued before 1500. Caxton (1476 and 1482) and Wynken de Worde (1498) responded individually to the perceived authority of the work, while Richard Pynson (1492) attempted to replace the nonstandard…

Mentions the electronic edition of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue, edited by Peter Robinson and others.

Observes that the "ferses twelve" of BD 723, though impossible on a common chess board, was possible on some medieval boards (especially in Germany) of twelve squares by eight squares, with their twelve pawns. Then argues that the phrase has…

Describes Chaucer's arrangements of multiple adjectives (preposed, postposed, and combined), contrasting his practice with other Middle English writers, and exploring the poetic value of his usage, suggesting that he seems to have been "the writer…

Comments on the role of refugee literature in the "shifting contexts of [literary] canonisation" and then explores "the role of Chaucer in 21st-century refugee writing," focusing on aspects of CT (especially MLT) that resonate in Patience Agbabi's…

A survey of issues in Chaucer study, designed to help students prepare for examinations.

The choices between ye and thou in CT are governed by the "interactional status of the characters," a set of principles differing "considerably from modern address systems." Jucker surveys previous criticism on the topic and assesses exchanges and…