Browse Items (16381 total)

Richly rhetorical and allusive, Chaucer's "Go, litel bok" stanza, in its undercutting of the opposition between "makyng" and "poesye," reflects his ambivalence toward the new classicizing poetics of trecento Italy.

Attempts a revaluation of LGW by viewing it as a stage--both a creative result and an important influence--in the tradition of female tragedy. Highlights the contribution of the new classicizing to a new presentation of women.

Considers Furnivall's use of Chaucer and Langland in his teaching at the Working Men's College and analyzes some of his early editions and the political effect of his "pet book" among the EETS English Gilds volumes. Furnivall's endeavors and…

Haas interprets MkT as Chaucer's critical testing of tragedy (one of the most problematic pagan genres being revived) and thus his evaluation of the most progressive endeavors of his age, voiced with the greatest impact by "maister Petrak."

Studies Chaucer's clever exploitation of the ambiguities between the laments of the lover and the mourner and his manipulation of traditional didactic patterns containing laments for the dead in Pity, BD, SqT, LGW (Thisbe), MLT, PhyT, ManT, TC, and…

Shows Chaucer's congruences with early humanist conceptions of tragedy (including Petrarch's and Boccaccio's) and sketches the consequences for a new interpretation of MkT.

The lament for the dead is a literary form that critics have found difficult to appreciate, even in Chaucer. The book sketches the sociocultural background in medieval England in connection with older traditions, native, biblical, Greco-Roman,…

Recognizing parallels between "The Wife of Bath and Her Tale" and contemporary female practice, Dryden intensified the elements of faery and magic in his version of the "Tale." In addition, he greatly reduced the lively presence of the Wife,…

Considers Spurgeon's work on the history of Chaucer criticism in the context of Spurgeon's career as a teacher and her role as a leader in seeking full standing for women in the academy.

Assesses the socio-political assumptions and implications of mid-nineteenth-century German study of Chaucer, especially pre-academic translations and commentary.

Includes a brief biography of Chaucer, plot summaries of the frame and the tales of CT, discussion of themes and style, a description of historical context, a critical overview, a selection of sixteen critical essays or excerpts, and suggestions for…

This encyclopedia of world authors describes how the works of individual authors "fits with the context of the author's life, historical events, and the literary world"; it includes a comprehensive index, printed in each of the four volumes. The…

Argues that the "study of the apocalyptic in the English literature of the late fourteenth cannot boil down simply to the tracing of sources or to historicist (New and otherwise) readings of contemporary texts and artifacts," and pursues, instead,…

Surveys criticism of ClT in order to show the "inadequacy" of this criticism and reads the Tale as a "typological allegory" even though it goes steps beyond its sources in depicting the plot realistically.

Hacking describes cultural assumptions about dreams in Western tradition (biblical, Cartesian, Freudian, etc.), noting especially dreams' presumed separation from "reality" and the complexities of their relationships with narrative. He briefly…

Includes eight essays by various authors, an Introduction by the editor, and a comprehensive Index. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Postmodern Poetics and Queer Medievalisms: Time Mechanics under Alternative Title.

Considers the diction of Chaucer, his successors, and CT editor Thomas Tyrwhitt as part of a larger argument for the interrelationship of late medieval and early modern poetic language.

Describes and assesses the influence of Chaucer's works on twentieth-century writer Jack Spicer, discussing Spicer's life, his poetics, and his uses of source materials, exemplified in his adaption of TC.

Argues that Spenser emulates Chaucer in "furthering the project of language formation in English." Attending to Chaucer's model in CT (and to Richard Mulcaster's precepts), Spenser uses interactive speakers who have various dialects and lexicons to…

Uses visualization software (the "network analysis software Gephi") to represent the interactions among the pilgrims in the links between tales in CT, focusing on the importance of the Host and his "twin anxieties"--concern with haste and with…

Focuses on Norton and Gower, but closes with a comparison of Gower's "linking of alchemy and language" with Chaucer's in CYT and suggests that Gower combines Latin and English to "produce poetic truths" while Chaucer emphasizes "combinations of…

Describes the "inbetweenedness" of language in Caroline Bergvall's poetic/performative "trilogy--"Meddle English" (2011), "Drift" (2014), and "Alisoun Sings" (2019)--including discussion of her uses of forms of "Chaucer's Middle English, as well as…

Defines the extent of the laity's knowlege of the Bible in late-fourteenth-century England.

The passage in Spenser echoes KnT 1.2987-3074, Theseus's "Firste Moevere" speech.

Analyzes the relationship between conceptions of social class and literary representations of them in Britain from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. Chapter 2, "Perceptions of Class in the Late Middle Ages," addresses William Langland's…