Browse Items (16382 total)

Suggests that a portion of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.23-24) is a source for the Wife of Bath's comments on precedence at the offertory (GP 1.449-522).

Generalizes that John Dryden's compositional technique (in which abstractions precede concrete details) has precedent in the medieval "rhetorical poetic." Then shows how the details of KnT are "the vehicle for the presentation of certain Boethian…

Argues that in his characterizations of the non-ecclesiastical pilgrims of CT Chaucer emulated the devices and techniques of medieval ethology, based in the "contemptus mundi" tradition, and variously prescriptive and descriptive. Comments on GP as a…

Attributes the metaphors of blindness and light in TC to the direct influence of Statius's "Thebaid" (unmediated by the "Roman de Thébes"), suggesting that the pattern of imagery culminates in Troilus's comparison of himself to Oedipus (TC 4.300).

Explores the complementary thematic interconnections of PhyT and PardPT (integrity and fraudulence, spiritual fertility and sterility, virtue and vice, defeat of death), reading their interdependence in light of ParsT and the section of the "Roman de…

Explores how Dante and Petrarch provide a "schema for understanding" the modifications Chaucer made to the view of love in Boccaccio's "Filostrato." The "Vita Nuova" offers a "hierarchy of love," analogous to that in TC even though Chaucer may not…

Uses the analytic methods of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss to argue that KnT "embodies in the syntax of its plot the basic rules and taboos of a perfectly structured and unchallenged social and cosmological order"--in short, a "mythic…

Argues that the "ritual outlined in the confessional manuals" underlies the depiction of the Canon's Yeoman's "psychological predicament." Still attracted to alchemy and disguising the connection between his Canon and the canon of his tale, the…

Discusses the dating of BD, correcting previous scholarship by adducing evidence from a letter by Louis de Mâle, count of Flanders, that helps to establish the death of Blanche of Lancaster as 12 September 1368. Comments on the identity of the…

Argues that Chaucer encourages his audience to "view the affair between Troilus and Criseyde as a clandestine marriage rather than as an illicit love affair," different from the analogous relationship in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and consistent with…

Reads Saturn and the saturnine elements of KnT as the attitudes and qualities that oppose free will, reason, and Theseus's new age of proper order, moderation, and pity. Chaucer's addition to Boccaccio, Saturn represents the strict and unfortunate…

Savors the indeterminacies of manuscript transmission, treating them as a form of "anonymous or indeterminate revision" in contrast with strict, modern notions of authorial revision. Exemplifies the variety found in manuscripts of "Piers Plowman," CT…

Proposes that the first line of HF derives directly from Tibullus (III.iv.95) and hypothesizes that Chaucer may have had access to a manuscript of Tibullus's work (Codex Ambrosianus) held by Coluccio Salutati in 1373.

Establishes that the suggestion of amorousness is implicit in the basting of (tight-fitting) sleeves in the "Roman de la Rose," Rom, and related illustrations.

Through line-by-line comparison shows that in the trial scene of SNT Chaucer improves upon the Latin original by compression and emphasis which increase dramatic impact, Cecilia's contentiousness, and Almachius's stupidity.

Proposes a new sequence for the parts of CT, one in which the tales of the Physician and Pardoner follow that of the Man of Law and in turn are followed by those of the Shipman, Prioress, etc. In light of this sequence and its arrangement of…

Surveys efforts to explain the meaning of "phislyas" (MLE 2.1189; here attributed to the Shipman), summarizing contextual concerns, manuscript variants, and several etymological hypotheses; agrees with those who treat it as a term related to…

Examines the Prioress's claim that she is unequal to the task of praising Mary as an example of the inexpressibility topos, used recurrently in the Middle Ages to express the ineffable. Comments on several instances of the topos used by theologians…

Studies the astrological references in WBP and casts her horoscope, interpreting it to show that Chaucer illumines "the entire character of the Wife with a configuration of planets unique in the fourteenth century," a configuration that occurred in…

Challenges critics who absolve Chaucer of anti-Semitism by blaming the Prioress instead. Anti-Semitism was rife in Chaucer's society, and he was likely complicit in the bias. Yet, the topic is a critical distraction in discussions of PrT, which…

Summarizes R. K. Root's theory of three classes of TC manuscripts, and analyzes several variants to argue for the superiority of those found in Root's "beta" class. Treats "beta" variants as authorial revisions.

Reads Constance in MLT as an "Everywoman" who represents humanity in relationship to an "arbitrary and inscrutable God." Several abrupt descents into "crudity" in the tale remind us not to regard Constance as real, and contrasts with her mothers in…

Differentiates the lover's malady in BD from the traditional love-sickness found in its analogues, identifying the malady as a form of head melancholy curable by a good night's sleep, the narrator's only physician. The comic version of the tale of…

Analyzes the gothic, inorganic structure of BD, commenting on the poem's status as a lament, an elegy, and a consolation; its clear articulation of various parts; and its consistency with the compositional advice given by rhetorician Geoffrey of…