Browse Items (16381 total)

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…

FranT is comedic in structure from first to last since all the events are equally lucky for all the characters by the end of the tale. Noble gestures are made, even by the magician,but neither harm nor disadvantage results for any of those who make…

A study of language in PhyT reveals intricate patterns of cohesion among elements sometimes regarded as disparate. The text invites the reader to consider several ethical and literary issues.

Outlines the teaching of a unit on global, multicultural "inns and "hostels" in medieval texts, focusing on representations of nonwestern dwelling places during travel. Includes comments on SqT as "rich in hotel psyche and tonality."

Heng assesses MLT as an account of a "feminized crusade" that involves "sexual martyrdom" on the part of Custance and reveals the power of her "reproductive sexuality." The fusion of hagiography and romance in MLT is also evident in ClT, but while…

Cartlidge investigates gossip as mundane, trivial speech in TC, in contrast to the more dangerous tradition of damaging speech invoked by Pandarus.

Testing the premise of A. C. Spearing's "Textual Subjectivity" (2005), Klitgård explores the dramatic monologues of the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner and uses of narrative personae.

Compares the ways narratives deal with interiority before and after the year 1500, noting an increase in the use of metaphorical language and allegories of the characters' emotions.

Considers how editorial and critical assumptions have retroactively made the manuscript records of PF conform to post-print expectations about narrative poetry.

Discusses Chaucer's use of the concepts "kynde" and "nature." Although Chaucer uses the two interchangeably at times, "kynde" represents absolute moral standards, indicating power and reason. The "lex naturalis" of antiquity also includes these…

Explores the potential for "training" a computer to identify spelling variants in Middle English texts, using Robinson's edition (1957) of CT as a basis for analysis. Describes a methodology, results, and perceived shortcomings.

Modern notions of the "key role of materiality in allegory," as theorized by Walter Benjamin and echoed by Paul de Man, have clear precedents in patristic and medieval commentaries on allegory and supposition, although the sense of "material" is more…

Examines the narrative devices of WBP, classifying the Wife's oaths, metaphors, logic, euphemisms, and proverbs and suggesting that her appropriations of these traditional devices underpin her broader challenge to male authority.

Using the wrestling scene in KnT 1.2959-64 as a point of departure, the author argues that the violent homoeroticism of the passage, elevated by Chaucer to a matter of state, "exposes Boccaccio's classicism as a veneer under which the traditional…

Assesses the morning-scene in TC 3.1415ff. in light of source-and analogue materials in Ovid's "Amores," Boccaccio's "Filostrato," and elsewhere, arguing that Chaucer combines elements from various genres and forms ingeniously to produce something…

French translation of GP, KnT, MilT, and NPT, the first part of a projected complete translation of CT.

North summarizes medieval arithmetic theory and practice, describes Chaucer's professional familiarity with arithmetic, and explores arithmetic allusions and structuring in BD, particularly its shape as an abacus.

Popular treatment of the manuscript and the Huntington's acquisition of it, including color reproduction of the illuminations.

Surveys the nature and directness of Boccaccio's influence on English literature from Chaucer to the 1611 Authorized Version of the Bible, with emphasis on style.

RvT differs from its sources and analogues by developing the relationship between sight, desire, and reason, ultimately questioning the function of vision, the most important of the senses.

In TC, Troilus's melancholic character and his intense intellectual activity--a topos reminiscent of the first of Pseudo-Aristotle's thirty "problemata" in "Problemata Physica," according to which all men of genius are melancholy--are especially…

PardT shows the polysemous aspects of gluttony as a sin, suggesting that gluttons are similar to heretics, who use the mouth to deny sacred truths. In contrast to the Parson, the Pardoner embodies the idea that "peccata oris" are not confined to…

The theme of doubleness in "The Floure and the Leafe" appears to have been especially attractive for Keats,whose attention was always drawn to the relationship between life and art. He found in the medieval poem an interesting "authority" that…

Boitani surveys Chaucer's "ongoing dialogue" with Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, discussing how Chaucer's borrowings reflect his "prodigious memory and striking associative and intertextual skill." Draws examples from PF, TC, KnT and ClT and…

Limited edition art-book version of MilT that uses the Nevill Coghill trans.