Browse Items (16381 total)

Suggests a clear parallel between Boethius and Melibee: both have suffered an injustice, which is seen as a symptom of an illness that has to be cured and that has moved them away from God to where Fortune rules. They are thus subjected to punishment…

Chaucer's spelling habits are still uncertain. Reasons for disagreement among scholars lie in approaches to the problem. Analysis of the spelling "ayein"/"ayeyn" in Hengwrt and Ellesmere and related manuscripts suggests that studies based on the…

Eaton connects various uses of the word "conscience" in Chaucer's works with the social classes of the characters with whom the word is associated and with gender differences such as the structuring of physical space.

The printing history of Chaucer and Lydgate runs parallel until about 1540. After that, only the printing of Chaucer continues, although Lydgate's works are often included in editions of Chaucer or Chauceriana. The 1542 Statute "An Acte for…

Chaucer was well aware that he was writing for an audience that read his poems aloud. In his four dream poems, he familiarizes his audience with the subject matter through communication strategies, including conversational interjections such as "that…

Questions why Chaucer was not more popular with late-eighteenth-century "antiquarians and pseudomedieval dabblers," arguing that Chaucer had already been "co-opted" by earlier Enlightenment culture, "de-coupled" from his age, and valued for his…

Anglo-Norman should be considered "a coherent, if constantly changing, entity from 1066 to the middle of the fifteenth century" (559), with widely different forms that influenced English in the fifteenth-century, when scribes were working both in…

Challenges Tolkien's view that Chaucer aimed at a consistent representation of Northern dialect in RvT. Probably closest to Chaucer's autograph, the Hengwrt manuscript is neither complete nor consistent, while later scribes added Northern features…

Assesses Troilus as a courtly lover in TC, as seen through the perspective of Augustine's Confessions.

FranT raises problems rather than providing a solution in the Marriage Group. Like ClT, it poses "a problematic marriage agreement" at the outset; like MerT, it shows that disastrous consequences can result from introducing non-marital love into a…

In RvT 3944 and FrT 1614, "panne" can be read as the plural of penny instead of pan or dish. In early fourteenth-century Type II London dialect, "panne" is a common variant of "peni." In this light, Chaucer's authorship of fragments B and C of Rom…

In light of sociolinguistic categories such as register, distance-solidarity, and dialect, Allman contends, RvPT and the Reeve's portrait in GP stand as sustained examinations of failed sociality and unsatisfied desire at both dramatic and narrative…

Although erotic and homosexual elements are undoubtedly evident in SumT, certain words and gestures, particularly the friar's ill-fated grope, do not unambiguously have the homosexual charge that has been claimed.

NPT can best be approached by focusing on form and style rather than on theme and narrator. Attempting to define a central theme or message is frustrated by the Tale's allusive richness and multiplicity of perspectives, and the narrator is largely…

Identifies in RvT lexical evidence of a culture permeated with French linguistic influence, evidence that could be reinforced by a more thorough linguistic study of RvT and the rest of Chaucer's corpus: "Far from being 'ephemeral and localized' or…

Johnson examines Chaucer's attitudes about and representations of the "workings of the soul in stirring itself towards God," comparing Bo to its Boethian original in light of late fourteenth-century pastoral instruction and tracing similar sentiments…

Crespo-García gauges the "scientific register" of Astro and Equat in contrast with medical handbooks, examining etymology and specificity in the common nouns and nominalized forms in these works. The astrological treatises reflect a specialized…

In FranT, Chaucer reshapes the source material found in Boccaccio's "Filocolo" and "Decameron," adding the "pre-story" of a courtly love marriage, increasing the pathos of Dorigen, undercutting Arveragus's "self-serving" views of honor and truth, and…

Modarelli examines the characterization of Pandarus in TC, particularly the way he acts "with the agency of an author"--one in a "trinity" of authors that includes the narrator and the poet. Using Tzvetan Todorov's formulation of "constructive…

In TC and KnT, Chaucer "revises Augustinian and Boethian formulations of "contemptus mundi," pointing out that any ethical system which seeks to address the topic of earthly desires must also address the human subject's endless appetite for desire as…

Chaucer's intentional contrasting of the language of the Knight and that of the Miller challenges his readers' openmindedness. The Miller's obscene language is cleverly applied and should on no account be censored from prudishness.

Iyeiri investigates negative constructions in five versions of Bo, discussing the relative chronology of the witnesses to the text and, more generally, the editing of Middle English texts.

The author addresses the question whether Chaucer had Adam Pynkhurst in mind when berating his scribe Adam for his sloppy work and, on the basis of palaeographical evidence, seeks to determine whether Pynkhurst's performance improved afterwards. To…

Argues that playwright Thomas Dekker, influenced by John Stow, refashioned the Chaucer legacy in the theater.

Assesses January's praise-of-marriage speech (encomium) as a "classical' thesis' as it appeared in the later Middle Ages." The speech engages the WBP through common source material and follows the topic and structuring of the thesis genre found in…