Browse Items (16381 total)

Three types of secret love can be found in TC and CT--KnT, MilT, RvT, MerT, FranT, ShT. The first type concentrates on secret feelings; the second, on illicit relations. The third, found particularly in TC, is distinct in that the story "follows…

Wetherbee's book briefly discusses Chaucer's language; the social and literary contexts of his work; the incomplete status of the text; and the reception of the tales, from Caxton, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Dryden to the editions of Skeat and…

Analysis of typical scholarly and critical comment on GP reveals that the common practice of assuming a context for the pilgrims' daily lives has some unsatisfactory consequences. Chaucer creates a fiction of travel to free the pilgrims from the…

Chaucer's use of an identifiable late-Gothic portrait technique can be seen by comparing one of the most familiar portraits of GP--the Prioress--with a roughly contemporary sculptural portrait of Philippa of Hainault. These late-Gothic portraits…

If Chaucer intended to turn Boccaccio's "Teseida" into a chivalric romance, he did not succeed, "but if his purpose was to make the frequently banal conventions and optimistic outlook of that genre play an ironic counterpoint to the tale's bleak…

The "De re militari" of Flavius Vegetius Renatus--translated three times into Middle English-condemns poorly kept armor. This passage supports the argument of Terry Jones ("Chaucer's Knight" SAC 5 (1983), no.137) that the physical deterioration of…

Examines KnT with special attention to Arcite's definition of love, presented with deep sympathy by the narrator--a sympathy infused, nonetheless, with a strong sense of despair. (In Japanese.)

Treats the "ambiguous relationship between 'aventure' and 'tydynges'" mentioned in HF, or one of Chaucer's most frequent themes: Fortune (or Providence) versus necessity, divine prescience, and free will, as seen in KnT and TC. Discusses the…

The inconsistencies of voice (Palamon, the Knight, or Chaucer?) in KnT 1303-27 indicate that the poet is manifesting his own artistry in the poem; writing is not merely an imitation of speaking.

MilT serves as a corrective to KnT (where chaos in effect breaks down order) by exceeding the typical symmetry of the fabliau (a genre in which order properly has no part). Departing from the "pryvete" set up in its many senses, MilT develops and…

Studies MilT for its "intersecting strands of linguistic coding" and contrasts Robertsonian character typing with Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination," semantic open-endedness. The stock character type of the Miller is "quited" by his tale. Bakhtin's…

Questions the gloss of "gnof" (MilT 3188) in major editions of CT. In all of medieval literature, the word appears only here, and it cannot be elucidated from the context. The editor's gloss ("churl") is inconsistent with the behavior of John, whom…

Suggests that the use of "rusty" in GP 618 foreshadows the moral criticism of the Reeve as corrupt, envious, and rancorous.

Examines medieval tragic scenes of recognition, including those in Chaucer's MLT and TC and in Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid."

The unresolved contradicitons, sudden shifts, and visible seams in MLT indicate the Man of Law's limitations not just as storyteller but also "as a man of law." The limits of the common law of his patriarchial society give him his identity and…

The pattern of sustained allusion to Gower's "Confessio Amantis" provides an important index to the purpose of MLT. Gower communicates the horror of a moral void; the Man of Law inveighs against Canacee's sinfulness. Chaucer's tale ultimately…

Shows that key passages in the Wife's monologue can be justifiably located in the context of Lollardy, focusing on her use of the word "expres" (WBP 27, 61, 719) and her insistence on the primacy of scriptural authority.

In WBP and WBT, Chaucer dramatizes a powerful reorientation of tradition. In the endings of both, Alison images a reconciliation that awards women justification and a degree of self-definition, without injuring men. The comic genre of CT does not…

The rapist-knight's plea to "Tak al my good and let my body go" (WBT 3.1061) highlights his role reversal not only with the raped maiden but also with women bound to legalized rape by the concept of the "marriage debt." Richman suggests that the…

Draws contrasts between Sir Gawain, who attempts to act the part of standard knight of romance, and the protagonists of WBT and MerT. The Wife sets her tale in the medieval antifeminist matrix; the Merchant, building on her insight, mingles romance,…

Explores how some poststructuralist contributions to the theory of narrative enable a feminist rereading of two of the tales and suggests that Chaucer presents a bleak view of male-female relations.

Coverchiefs, while sometimes a sign of mourning, are more often read as a devilish device to "blind men's sight," as Robert Mannyng suggests. The Wife's coverchiefs serve as one of numerous signs that "her life...remains in theological disarray."

Rejecting Siegfried Wenzel's view that the character Thomas suffers from insensitivity, Malone finds that Thomas shows more sensitivity to the death of his only child than his wife shows in all she says.

Outrage at Walter's treatment of Griselda, seeing Griselda's story as a religious allegory of patience, even seeing it as a folk tale rewritten--such responses indicate that ClT is a poem "divided against itself." One way to resolve these conflicts…

In response to William McClellan's article and drawing on an earlier article of his own, Engle sketches how Bakhtin can function as a mediating figure in the current politics of theory and interpretation, particularly with ClT.