Browse Items (16381 total)

Surveys medieval treatment of cats in science, witchcraft, bestiaries, proverbs, fables, and literature. Notes Chaucer's occasional references to cats in MilT, WBP, and SumT.

King James, Henryson, Dunbar, and Douglas were influenced by Chaucer rhetorically and stylistically, as well as in their choices of genre; but Gray emphasizes the influence of Chaucer's ideas and themes--noting particularly how Chaucer's "powers" of…

"Gentilesse" for Chaucer implied honor or "good name," as well as good words and deeds. His ideas on the concept are rooted in the classics and in Christianity but also look forward to the humanists. FranT is probably nearer to a last word on this…

"Pite" and its synonym "routhe" occur almost always in their original erotic context in Chaucer's earlier works: Pity, TC, PF, and FranT. It may be equated with "generous self-sacrifice" on the part of the lover. As Chaucer broadens the concept,…

Characterizes the nature and conventions of Middle English lyrics, looking briefly at representative examples. Includes discussion of Chaucer as both a representative lyricist and one who breaks boundaries in his short poems.

The English word "digression" is first recorded in TC 1.143, where the narrator comments on the fall of Troy. This digression anticipates ideas and images that occur later in the poem and reflects the narrator's difficulty in coming to a conclusion.

Surveys the art and rhetoric of scenes of sorrow or pity in Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Henryson, Malory, and others, arguing that Chaucer is "undoubtedly the master of the various modes of pathetic writing" in the period. Comments on scenes in KnT,…

Gray comments on the cultural value and functions of proverbs and their kin (adages, aphorisms, etc.), focusing on two "clusters" of proverbs: the "proverb war" of WBP and the complex and intricate uses of proverbs by Pandarus, Criseyde, and the…

Sketches the French backgrounds and courtly functions of late medieval English lyrics, surveying representative samples from Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Charles d'Orléans, Skelton, the Findern manuscript, and Humphrey Newton's collection.…

Gray surveys "literature written in English from the death of Chaucer to the earlier sixteenth century," with numerous references to Chaucer's legacy and influence during the period. Introductory chapters on intellectual and cultural history are…

Gray surveys the study of Middle English literature from the founding of the British Academy until the early twenty-first century, commenting on accomplishments of individual scholars up to World War II. He describes critical trends and how they…

Comments on charms in TC, ParsT, and MilT as an introduction to a general survey of medieval charms and the need to study them more extensively, especially those in medical manuscripts.

Examines how the "lost culture" of oral literary and folk and popular traditions of the Middle Ages influenced medieval writers. Mentions Chaucer's understanding of proverbs and oral and folk culture in ClT, WBT, MLT, FranT, and TC.

Biography of Chaucer, with brief bibliography. Sub-sections include "Early Life," "Poetry: The Beginnings," "Journeys on the King's Service--Italy," "Chaucer at the Customs House and Aldgate," "Works of the 1370s and early 1380s," "Life in London,…

Argues that Dorigen and Arveragus's agreement at the beginning of FranT "to marry and remain courtly lovers" reflects the Franklin's illusory "double standard" that falsely assumes compatibility between marital and courtly love, symbolically undercut…

TC exemplifies the Aristotelian idea of tragedy, with Troilus undergoing the "perepetia" ("reversal") and the ending of the tale presenting a Christianized version of catharsis.

Explains Chaucer's humor as the "healthy expression of a spiritually sound man" faced with a decadent world and surmises that Chaucer was publicly cuckolded by Philippa and John of Gaunt.

Comments on selected images in "Beowulf," Langland's "Piers Plowman," and MilT, where the "imagery of holiness" can be seen to align Nicholas and Alisoun's love-making with divine pattern. Also includes a classroom exercise to sensitize students to…

Studies the uses, meanings, and nuances of the concept of magnanimity in the English Middle Ages and Renaissance, including discussion of Chaucer, who, although "he makes no full-scale attempt to portray the magnanimous man in his wholeness,"…

Introduces Chaucer's life and works, with a brief selected bibliography. Includes plot summaries and/or descriptions of BD, Rom, HF, PF, TC, LGW, each of the CT, and several lyrics.

Details of the tale of Griselda indicate that the "key to the tale's power" in the late Middle Ages is its "startling role reversal, from marchioness to chambermaid, and the fundamental questions about the marital relationship it so dramatically…

While vernacular precedents for Chaucer's satirical portrait of a pardoner have so far eluded scholars, five Latin exempla in a fourteenth-century French Dominican's collection, "Scala coeli," suggest that "the pardoner was already a type of the…

Explains efforts to prepare for and stage a production of Shakespeare and Fletcher's "The Two Noble Kinsmen," using Timothy Slover's modernization of the play. Includes comments on the dynamics of seriatim translation from Chaucer's sources in KnT,…

Considers aspects of Th that are "burlesque," commenting on diction, meter, details, various rhetorical figures, and rhymes that convey irony and comedy. Poses many of these examples in contrast with parallels elsewhere in CT.