Browse Items (16381 total)

The two tales have a common ancestor, but the very different motives of the Confessor and of the Wife are reflected in the language texture. Gower's style complements his vision of order and harmony; WBT is more vivid, dramatic, and suspensful.

Making the improbable seem momentarily probable, Chaucer risks offending his audience by telling a bawdy story, but he excuses himself and blames the Miller for any breach of good taste. Chaucer catches the reader off guard with the abrupt…

Contrary to N. F. Blake, textual evidence does not support a rejection of Thynne's edition and his unique lines 31-96 for BD; nor do textual and linguistic matters prove their authenticity. The passage fits into the poem and its thematic patterns…

The textual tradition shows that the major and perhaps sole manuscript used by Thynne lacked lines 31-96. The borrowings from the French alleged by Helen Phillips for this passage are commonplaces. No reliable evidence proves that Chaucer composed…

N. F. Blake's various arguments for the authenticity of the text of Hengwrt are not persuasive, though his thesis regarding a single developing author's copy for CT remains valuable.

Chaucer is indebted to "The Romance of the Rose" for many of his techniques of irony, such as the juxtaposition of units not in themselves ironical, the exposure of hypocritical or false reasoning, the unreliable narrator, ironical digression, and…

Consideration of the phonological environments in which C. F. Babcock's oft-cited study of 1914 found apocopated '-e' in five of Chaucer's poems, from BD through FranT, considerably reduces the number of clear cases of apocope but supports her…

A non-Augustinian, antifeminist English tradition of the devil's mousetrap interprets it as a symbol for temptation and entrapment of the soul. The Prioress's distress in GP 143-45 therefore need not signify her sinfulness, as argued by Stephen…

Seymour takes various "absurdities" in SqT to demonstrate "unambiguously" that, like Th, the tale is an intentional parody of courtly romances.

Adduces evidence that Thynne's edition of 1523 is the work of a careful, conservative editor. Thynne did not invent his unique readings but based them on Caxton, Fairfax, and Bodley. In other words, his HF "is truly an edition."

Mentions HF 1321-22 as an early example of the role of heralds in the fifteenth century as "court publicists."

Examines two instances in which Hengwrt is markedly different from other early manuscripts. The first instance casts doubts on the authenticity of CYP and CYT (not in Hengwrt). The second suggests that the long form of NPP and those versions in…

Chaucer's knights reflect three errors in their service of love: (1) the subjection of women's bodies to male wills for the sake of public order and honor (KnT, FranT, PhyT); (2) the rapine pursuit of women's bodies for pride or lust (MLT, WBT,…

In seeking "blisse" and "prosperitee," Arveragus and Dorigen opt for a limited, worldly purpose for their marriage. The difficulties that arise stem primarily from Arveragus's and Dorigen's words to each other and from the nature of their…

Unlike Machaut's knight, Chaucer's Black Knight, when describing his lady, shifts his attention from her outward appearance to her inner nature, as if he gradually comes to realize her value to him--a realization that helps him cope with her death.

In TC, "shall" and "will" are important "to the characterization and overall modal texture." Chaucer appears to adumbrate John Wallis's seventeenth-century formula that "shall" expresses the speaker's determination to perform the intended action,…

By asking her question, the queen in WBT forces the knight to think about what he has done and to realize that what women definitely do not want is to be raped. To educate the knight (and the audience?) is more important than simply to execute him.

The fantasies of the rocks and the garden, initially denoting personal obsession, lose their ominous character when Dorigen and Aurelius enter into dialogue, a discourse grounded in mutual understanding. Unlike the dangerous rocks, threats to our…

Late-medieval instructional poetry presents children as adults saw them and with adults' worries about them. In late-medieval narrative poetry, children are almost entirely absent, apart from a few exceptions such as the Pearl-maiden, the clergeon…

Argues that Chaucer's portrait of Blaunche in BD is not a mere rhetorical exercise in the tradition of Vinsauf's prescriptions but "a serious attempt" to reform the "descriptio feminae," exploring identity by examining the relation between mind and…

Examines implications of Griselda's problematic promise of obedience (which she should have rescinded once she realized that it meant consent to the murder of her children) from the perspective of theologians and religious writers such as Aquinas and…

Allusions to the Fall appear in at least half of the tales in CT, but a full tropological reading occurs only in ParsT (10.330), where the allegory explains that "the image of God in man guarantees our ability to rise after a fall."

Challenges the discussion of Angela M. Lucas and Peter J. Lucas (SAC 15 [1993], no. 215), arguing that the marriage of Dorigen and Arveragus "is a poetic expression of freedom and love brought to life by the power of 'trouthe'," a force so much…

Replies to M. C. Seymour's identification of seven satiric loci in SqT arguing that Chaucer's manipulations of convention may be seen as innovation rather than parody.

Medieval texts on the ages of humankind (such as "The Parlement of the Thre Ages") indicate that January of MerT is not extremely old or about to die; he is at the transition between middle and old age. May is in early stage of adulthood.