Browse Items (16470 total)

Reviews Chaucerian references to Lollards and sees early Lollard belief as highly eclectic.

Treats the debate over the problem of salvation for the virtuous pagan and the solutions of theologians in the medieval Church and then concentrates on Dante, "St. Erkenwald," and "Piers Plowman."

The oral-aural traditions of sermon giving and hearing can be illustrated in Chaucer's PardT, where four principles of sermon writing can be seen: strong interaction between the Pardoner and his audience of pilgrims; syntactic patterns such as…

Fourteen essays and an introduction explore "the subject of language in medieval literature" using traditional approaches together with modern critical theory, focusing on "what medieval writers themselves wrote about language," and specifically…

The natural is commonly seen as a norm for human behavior in the Middle Ages, but Chaucer reveals skepticism about the normative status of Nature and the goodness of the order it oversees in ManT, SqT, BD, PF, and TC.

"Medieval authors mistrusted their readers' potential responses and felt obliged to direct that response accordingly"; in medieval literature, the author's address to the reader was "a device to activate the critical intelligence, while deactivating…

For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for John Gower, Recent Readings under Alternative Title.

Three paradigms of the Celtic universe made their way, through either oral or literary tradition, into early English literature, as is shown in "Sir Orfeo," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," passages from four of the tales in CT, Spenser, and…

From preaching tradition Chaucer borrowed the "topos" of renaming the sins "to make them seem more attractive to sinners," a "topos" that took two major forms: "a narrative "exemplum" about the Devil's unmarriageable daughters," and a "non-narrative…

Chaucer and Boccaccio, as the first sophisticated authors to write in the genre, adapted certain fabliaux to their purposes.

By giving a voice to the shrewish Wife of Bath and to Katherine of Padua, Chaucer and Shakespeare demonstrate their grasp (if not their personal views) of the proper role of gender in the ancient debate. Treats "Othello," "King Lear," "Measure for…

One of the most consistent strands of controversy has been Chaucer's reputation for the "bawdy" in CT. What has been objected to as "bawdy," "ribaldry," "wantonness," "scurrility," "incivility," and so on "has "shifted and changed over the…

Review article covering six recent books: B. Boyd's Variorum edition of PrT; R. Jordan's Chaucer's Poetics and the Modern Reader; L. Kendrick's Chaucerian Play; L. Koff's Chaucer and the Art of Storytelling; C. Lindahl's Earnest Games; and L.…

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…