Browse Items (16381 total)

Studies Chaucer's sources, invocations to, and use of the muses in Anel, HF, TC, and CT. The use in CT is humorous. In HF, the muses are a "metaphorical model" for the "art poetical." In TC, muses chart the changing attitudes of the narrator.

Chaucer's contemporaries were familiar with his "tyraunts of Lumbardye" (LGW, G. 353), notorious for their cruelty. The Lombard setting of ClT suggests proverbial Lombard tyranny for Walter, an imperfect mixture of tyranny and pity, for he rues…

Examines the two lyrics embedded in BD for what they reflect about the relation between the narrator and the Black Knight. Through this relation and its "delicate act of self-effacement," Chaucer credits John of Gaunt for commemorating his dead…

Cruxes in BD--how it can function both universally and individually, why it was composed some years after Blanche's death--can be better understood by placing the poem in the context of tomb sculpture. At the time Chaucer was writing,Henry Yevele…

The portrait of the Man in Black of BD reflects a traditional "imago pietatis," the Man of Sorrows. So, to a lesser degree, do the Falcon of SqT and Criseyde.

A comparison of the manuscripts of TC with those of Boccaccio's "Filostrato" indicates that Chaucer's narrative divisions correspond to the summary rubrics in the earlier work, even if he did not retain Boccaccio's internal subdivisions.

Discusses the blanks left for illustration in Corpus Christi College MS 61, suggesting a possible strategy for prospective illustrations, including initials: the illustration would have emphasized choice as an aspect of narrative structure. The…

Focuses on the ordinatio and implications of illustrations to CT (apart from those in the Ellesmere MS): the "generic 'author' image" found in MS Lansdowne 851, MS Bodley 686, and the "Devonshire" MS; the portrait of the Friar in MS Rawlinson poet.…

Examines the history and literature of Richard II "through a queer theoretical lens," including discussion of TC, Maidstone's "Concordia," Shakespeare's "Richard II "(and its performance history), and modern fiction. Explores the "cultural norm of…

If the Parson represents the Church, the Ploughman represents lay piety in brotherhood with the Church. This is how Chaucer perceives the poet's role: as a "'trewe swynkere,' working 'for Cristes sake, for every povre wight' in accordance with the…

Medieval iconography of the monkey physician examining a urinal reflects concern about contemporary physicians but may also evoke associations with Christ as salvific doctor. Hardwick briefly considers aspects of Phy-PardL and the Ellesmere portrait…

Explores relations between vernacularity and scatology in MilT and "Til Eulenspiegel," commenting on how use of the "kultour" in MilT plays upon the Knight's earlier reference to a plough and undermines clerical discourse in which the plough is a…

Portrays the symbolic and naturalistic use of the cat and applies these concepts to SumT and its critique of the mendicant orders.

Argues that the Hundred Years' War has been overemphasized as a moment in which war, identity, and language coalesced to form distinct English and French nations and vernaculars. Portrayals of France in the works of Chaucer and others are not…

Documents the British Library's exhibition of the same name (May-September 2012). Examines how the British landscape shapes literary texts, and how British authors depict the wide range of landscapes in English literature. Briefly discusses Chaucer's…

Focuses on literary food writing and includes brief discussion of the Franklin's hospitality in GP..

Translates ABC into modern English verse, retaining Chaucer's original meter, stanza form, and rhyme scheme. Includes brief introductory description of the poem and a biographical eulogy for Professor John van der Westhuizen, to whom the translation…

Comments on various aspects of KnT and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (sources, dates, verse forms, etc.), discussing most extensively their uses of rhetorical devices. Finds KnT to be inferior because in it "form dictates to matter" and because…

Demonstrates the plain prose style of John Wyclif's sermons by comparing and contrasting five sample sermons with passages of similar length from ParsT and the "Cloud of Unknowing," considering sentence length, complexity, and clausal construction;…

Surveys the rise of the garden topos in western literary traditions--classical and medieval, idealized and courtly. Then assesses Chaucer's uses of the traditional iconography of garden conventions in Rom, BD, PF, LGWP, HF, TC, and CT.

Looks at ClT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 10.10, along with works of St. Jerome, Apuleius, and Petrarch, to examine assumptions about Griselda and versions of her tale, arguing that Chaucer was aware of the Boccaccio text.

Chaucer's translations of key phrases in the Griselda story reveal his use of the Boccaccio source material as a way to underscore the "complexity" of the story and the varied authorial voices involved in translation.

Examines the ways in which the Legend of Ariadne in LGW reflects Chaucer's concerns over the cyclical and repeating tragedies of history.

Focuses on Jason in LGW and other sexually predatory men, examines a number of motifs in Chaucer's version of Jason, and highlights the danger of men such as Jason who hide their behavior behind gentility.

Chaucer's four additions to the story of Virginia can be explained, and the whole poem understood, as clarifications of "her allegorical role as the human soul" in rejecting sin.