Browse Items (16382 total)

Reviews criticism and scholarship on Chaucer in Sweden and England, treating backgrounds (social, religious and philosophical, and literary), general works, and new directions in scholarship.

An iconographic analysis suggesting that the illustration of Chaucer reading to the court of Richard II benefited the Lancastrian campaign to recognize "English as the national language of England" (exemplified by Chaucer as supreme "user and…

Surveys commentary on the frontispiece to TC in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, MS 61, and argues that it was commissioned by Henry V as part of his program to promote Lancastrian legitimacy and English vernacular writing.

Considers the frontispiece to TC found in Corpus Christi College MS 61 (which depicts Chaucer addressing a court audience, particularly the court of Richard II). The frontispiece shows that literature was delivered orally (by "prelection") and…

Summary description of Chaucer's life and each of his major works, with a bibliography and a chronology of the works accompanied by manuscript and publication information. Treats CT most extensively, focusing on the "quiting principle" of the tales'…

Explores how Dante and Petrarch provide a "schema for understanding" the modifications Chaucer made to the view of love in Boccaccio's "Filostrato." The "Vita Nuova" offers a "hierarchy of love," analogous to that in TC even though Chaucer may not…

Identifies in KnT a "series of metamorphoses that expose the dehumanizing force of Venerian love," arguing that Chaucer converted Boccaccio's "random collection" of animal images into a "formal pattern" and obliquely affirmed the Boethian notion that…

Argues that the phrase "been lyk a cokewold" (MilT 1.3226) means that John fears he is a cuckold, not that he will be a cuckold, observing misconstruals in editions and translations of the Tale.

The discourse of "fin amor" places the male subject in a feminine position; in BD, the absence of White problematizes this feminization of the male, producing melancholia that endangers the Black Knight's psychic stability and the dominant fiction of…

Medieval fable cannot be read as though each animal or figure held a fixed allegorical meaning. NPT, for instance, could signify as many meanings as subsequent readers have postulated.

Fables present a worldlier view than do Christian bestiaries, and neither genre presented a worldview full enough for Chaucer or other writers. Fable became more Christian, developing witty moralization, sharply drawn personae, and more vivid style…

William Blake's criticism of GP can best be appreciated by considering his painting, Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the Nine and Twenty Pilgrims on Their Journey to Canterbury, and his smaller engraving of the same subject. Blake's images, though…

Argues that Chaucer perhaps intended to allow the GP pilgrims to serve as the "'dramatis personae' of the Tales themselves" and to move among the complicated levels of reality in CT.

Attends to the source relations between KnT and Boccaccio's "Teseida" to examine the latter in light of game theory.

The strictly medieval method of casting and interpreting horoscopes shows--in the developing dialectic of free will, Providence, and neccessity--the shortcomings of some CT pilgrims too worldly for ideal pilgrimage.

Collects examples of Chaucer's uses of pseudo-sciences in CT, for the most part, astrology and physiognomy.

Proverbs appear conventionally in most of Chaucer's early works, usually to lament changes in fortune. In the short poems, For, Buk, and Scog, however, Chaucer's proverbs become personal. In TC and CT proverbs spoken by characters (especially…

The Man of Law erases distinctions among spiritual, linguistic, and monetary exchange by trying to turn Custance and Christ into signs that can be circulated and traded for profit, raising the question of whether his tale is "true coining."

Working through WBP at various points in his writing career, Chaucer conceived of changing the character "Janekyn" to make him "Jankyn," the Wife's fifth husband. Thus, the character changes from an apprentice to a scholar boarding with the Wife to…

Provides a comprehensive view of how "race" is defined in the premodern world and addresses the process of "race-making" within and outside the European context. In particular, discusses how Jews in England were "racialized" and analyzes the "sensory…

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…

Compares several late-medieval boy-murder narratives to assess attitudes toward Jews before and after their 1290 expulsion from England. Chaucer's PrT is the "finest aesthetic treatment" of the story in the Middle Ages and, in comparison with other…

Includes comparison of PrT with sources and analogues: the Anglo-Norman Hughes de Lincoln and two accounts--"The Child Slain by Jews" and "The Jewish Boy"--found in the Vernon manuscript. Analyzes the stories' various contributions to the…

Analyzes the "repeated allusions to the Scholastic concept of a divinely-ordained universal order" in ClT. Shows that such allusions are generally not in Chaucer's sources, and that they help to characterize the Clerk as a "serious scholar and devout…

Compares editorial decisions from a linguistic perspective in Thomas Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's works with Andro Hart's Middle Scots 1616 edition of John Barbour's "Brus" to assess the perception of the intelligibility of Middle Scots and its…