Browse Items (16381 total)

Examination of the twelve manuscripts of Anel suggests that the work is not incomplete but rather two separate poems. Only the Complaint (lines 211-350 in modern texts) is Chaucerian; the narrative (which follows the Complaint in some manuscripts)…

The textual problems of Bo are more complex than they seem. Chaucer used several source texts, including commentaries and French translations; his chief interest was to translate the "'Consolatione' tradition," not just the "Consolatione" itself. …

The issues raised by the narrative style of BD, particularly in the use of its ambivalent first-person narrator, suggest Chaucer's early interest in an art that maintains a tension between convention and innovation.

BD is considerably more complex than some critics have believed: it is a "philosophical vision," not a "dream of folly" (Zimbardo); an "autobiography by dream" (Shoaf); a "literary sampler," or a "Boethian apocalypse" (Cherniss). It is not…

Dream visions of Langland, Chaucer, and the "Pearl"-poet use "not simply a common external form but one that contains an internal, intrinsic dynamic or strategy as well"; it derives from the "skepticism and nominalism of Augustine,…

The question whether a poet celebrates the famous (medieval view) or seeks personal fame (Renaissance) is examined through classical and medieval traditions and in HF.

The emendation of HF texts F and B, line 1709, to "for no fame nor (MSS "for") such renoun" may be preferable to Skeat's now-standard reading, "For fame ne for such renoun." Similarly, emendation of MSS "loo" (line 1909) to "looth" gives the line…

HF is a satire on Dante's procedures of damnation and on his Virgilianism. LGW and TC should not be read ironically but should be seen as continuations of the damnation debate with Dante that began with HF.

Each of the three modes of authority--textual, experiential, visionary--complicated by the fictive dream-vision form, "fails to be authoritative because each demonstrates the lack of finality and absoluteness presumed to be characteristic of…

Treatments of Dido and Aeneas in HF and LGW indicate that Chaucer develops a narrator-character who mediates actively between subject and audience in a more modern way than do his sources.

Examines the crux in lines 1907-15 as a "seam" in Chaucer's fabrication that reveals his understanding of allegory and its appropriateness for his vision. The "disconversant dialogue" represented in these lines is "a convention of personification…

Examines various uses and stylistic effects of "and" in HF.

Images of the cosmos based on the liberal arts appear in the epics of Martianus Capella, Bernard Silvestris, Alain de Lille, and Dante. Chaucer parodies and humanizes the universe in HF.

A proverb in LGW (LGWPF 464-65) may in fact be a (translated) borrowing from a line in Gower's "Vox clamantis." If so, this is clear evidence of the argument raised by John Fisher that Chaucer was "substantially influenced by the older poet."

The tradition of listing good women, dissociating them from their backgrounds, reveals varying attitudes toward woman's nature and rhetorical shifts from florilegia to debates; LGW is treated.

Thinness of critical response shows modern failure to perceive LGW's intended complexities. The question of which version of the Prologue was written first has not been settled. In a discussion based on F, Rowe identifies the daisy and Alceste as…

Although scholars agree that Chaucer failed to provide a solution to the problems raised in PF, Piehler argues through a reading on scholastic principles that Chaucer solves them "in accordance with principles characteristic of his age and…

The style of PF weights the syntagmatic axis of discourse, whereas "Pearl" weights the paradigmatic axis. This difference is revealed in the way each poem treats lexical innovation, the relation between syntax and verse form, and the relation…

Examines the social psychology and structure of male power--aggression in gazing, rape imagery and fantasy, objectification of women, competitive assertiveness among males--as aspects of "love" and the social expectations for masculine identity in…

An updated translation of "Il Filostrato," a source for TC.

Borrowing from classical, mythographical, and iconographic sources, Chaucer uses Helen of Troy in TC both as a character and as a model to parallel and emphasize Criseyde's calm detachment and ultimate infidelity, leading to betrayal of Troilus and…

Widespread acceptance of C. S. Lewis's belief that Criseyde's ruling passion is fear has resulted in a limited version of her motivation, for an equally powerful force, "routhe," works sometimes with and sometimes against her fear. The two forces…

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Canticle, all ascribed to Solomon by medieval commentators, shed light on both Dante and Chaucer. The latter drew both on Ecclesiastes and on commentary for TC.

Medieval concepts of love and sex were derived from the worship of Venus, the goddess of love. Art of the period shows men worshipping Venus, as well as men and women trying to win each other's love.

Susan Schibanoff (JEGP, 1977) is in error when she argues that the "impossibilia" testifying to Criseyde's love (TC 3.1492-98) suggests the medieval genre of the antifeminist lying-song. Rather, such "impossibilia" belong in a courtly context, and…