Browse Items (16357 total)

Describes principles of aesthetic appreciation evident in Elizabethan architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and literature, including a section entitled "The Elizabethan Appreciation of Chaucer" (pp. 223-30) which emphasizes admiration of Chaucer…

Observes a variety of astrological and sexual puns, allusions, and emphases in Troilus's address to Criseyde's house ("paraclausithyron"), distancing the reader from Troilus's grief and emphasizing sensual love.

A teaching edition that includes BD, HF, PF, TC, LGWP-F and the legend of Cleopatra, CT (without Mel or ParsT), and eight short lyrics (Ros, Adam, Gent, Truth, Sted, Scog, Buk, and Purse), with bottom-of-page notes and glosses, and a glossarial…

Reviews studies of Criseyde's character by G. L. Kittredge, George Mizener, and C. S. Lewis, and argues that she is "the finger pointing in accusation against the code of courtly love." She shows us that "we mortals are fools to think that by our…

Argues that in his "mature work" and in "the service of greater realism," Chaucer used rhetoric "dramatically rather than ornamentally." Then gauges the degree of appropriateness of tales to tellers in light of the percentage of rhetoric in a given…

Examines the statement about alliterative verse in ParsP 10.42-46, arguing that the "rum, ram, ruf" sequence has its source in French and helps to constitute a "meaningful . . . and technically adroit comment on alliterative poetry."

Comments on the ambiguity of the phrase "a finch eek koude he pulle," a detail in the GP description of the Summoner (CT 1.652).

Compares and contrasts John of MilT with January of MerT as "ridiculous figures" and "gulls of courtly love," the first "senex amans" naïve, the second lascivious. Both men violate "an existing societal order" and the ideals of "sexual propriety and…

Argues that the "artistic unity" of NPT is evident in "light of the [Nun's] Priest's personality," a man who is dissatisfied with "his position in life as a servant to a group of women." Differences between NPT and its source in the "Renart"…

Summarizes the "antagonistic and contradictory views on women" held by the medieval Church, and explores Chaucer's views of women by examining his uses of the motifs of sovereignty and obedience in marriage from BD through CT, focusing on three…

Clarifies references to St. Neot, St. Frideswide, and St. Thomas in MilT; provides historical and topographical information about Oseney Abbey and Oxford as setting for the tale; and explores Absolon's habit of not wearing a tonsure, despite the…

Compares TC with Boccaccio's "Filostrato," and explores Chaucer's "controlled use of the gods and the Christian God" as they "function ambiguously and symbolically" in contributing to the "ultimate meaning of the poem."

Assesses the transitions in BD as devices Chaucer uses to "direct the reader toward the hard statements [the poem] makes about deprivation, consolation, the hazards of fortune and the consequences of decision." Divisions in the conversation between…

Reads George Meredith's novel "The Tragic Comedians" as "a modern version" of TC, an "adaptation of Princess Helen von Racowitza's 'Autobiography,' overshadowed by Chaucer's great work," particularly influenced by his characterization of Criseyde.

Anthologizes 187 English lyric poems and lyrical excerpts from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, arranged in chronological order, with an Introduction (pp. 13-49), on-page glosses, end-of-text notes, an appendix of Types and Titles of the…

Explores the "literary value" of Chaucer's "pretended inferiority complex on the subject of poetry," commenting on the "modesty convention" (or humility topos) in the GP description of the Prioress, the moralization of NPT, the question of Providence…

Identifies references in Chaucer's works to "natural law," or "law of kynde," describing its status in medieval legal theory and philosophy, including Boethius, and exploring Chaucer's possible experiences with the practices of "law merchant" and…

Treats Chaucer's use of rhetorical lists or catalogs as an indication of his growth as a poet, from BD and its use of lists as "pure amplification" to PF where listing is "occasionally but not always subjected to the artistic needs of the entire…

Adduces medieval and modern medicine to argue that the Summoner's disease described in GP 1.623-66 can best be diagnosed as "a rosacea-like secondary syphiloderm with meningeal neurosyphilitic involvement, with chronic alcoholism playing an important…

Investigates the "dynamic relationship" between Fortuna and Natura in Chaucer's works, focusing on the depictions in ClT, PhyT, and KnT

Shows that the phrase "secree of secrees" in CYT 8.1447, cast as a "superlative genitive," suggests a "whole class of alchemical expressions identical in form" and thereby "sharply emphasizes Chaucer's ironical denunciation of the oracular…

Assesses ManT in light of its sources and analogues to reveal a "tissue of comic devices--of controlled incongruities, of hyperbole, of antiphrasis, of equivocations, allusions, and purposeful distortions" that "produce a parodic version of the…

Argues that in Chaucer's three uses of "brotel" and its derivatives in MerT (4. 1279, 2061, and 2241), the poet plays punningly on sexual implications of the term in addition to the primary meaning, "brittle" or "fragile."

Describes various motifs in MLT, observing that it "includes features common to the early form of the 'märchen' combined with relatively late developments," and claiming that Chaucer's "most important addition to his source," Trevet's "Cronicle," is…

Interprets BD and PF as allegories, offering "An Approach to Medieval Poetry" (pp. 3-31) as an introduction to exegetical or patristic criticism and a justification of the method. Explores the imagery, structures, ironic juxtapositions, and meanings…