Browse Items (16360 total)

Interprets the eagle's descent on the narrator in HF in light of medieval medical theory, contending that it is "actually an apoplectic seizure in 'visionary' form--a 'stroke'." Also, the eagle's oration on sound evinces Chaucer's familiarity with…

Argues that BD draws on Welsh mythology for a number of its details including the king named Octavian, the hunt motif, and the "white castle on a rich hill." King Octavian is a "composite figure" with several onomastic resonances.

Considers CYPT to be "highly moralistic," a poem that addresses the "nature and the consequences of man's transgression against the will of God." Signaled by juxtaposition with SNPT and appropriate to placement near the end of CT, CYPT is anagogical,…

Considers the courtly conventions that are used in Mars, and argues that they are deployed ironically and comically to "show the moral deficiencies" of the courtly "system" and lead the reader to judge it accordingly. Considers the allusive…

Resists readings of the CYT that regard the narrator as stupid or unwitting in his self-revelation, contending instead that he is a "newly reformed alchemist" who is, generally, "rational, down-to-earth, and persuasive in his description and…

Because violated virginity must be read as a violation of social cohesion, the so-called digressions on guardianship in PhyT are central to the theme of guarding the public good.

Bordalejo corrects the bibliographic description of Caxton's second edition of The Canterbury Tales (Cx2), held at St. John's College Library, Oxford.

Read in the context of Proverbs 21-14 ("a gift in secret pacifieth anger; and a reward in the bosom, strong wrath"), Thomas's gift is comic and condemns Friar John.

In GP, "Belmarye," one of the Knight's destinations, might well be glossed as a reference to Almerin (a province between Granada and Algezir), spelled "Balmarie" in a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript.

Middle English sermons and manuals of vices and virtues indicate that Chaucer's audience would have understood Jephtha's daughter as a figure of a loose woman. Through allusion to her, Chaucer creates a painfully ironic moment that characterizes…

The Host's retort to the Pardoner at the close of PardT reinforces a connection between the terms and concepts of testicles (false or otherwise) and relics (false or otherwise). A trilingual collection (French, Latin, and English) of terms along with…

Nicholas's door in MilT (knocked off of its hinges in one moment and then closed on its hinges a few minutes later) is a semiotic hinge in the play between public and private space, echoing Theseus's attempts to control space in KnT.

An inscription at the end of ParsT in a copy of Thynne's edition at Beinecke Library, Osborn Collection, Yale University, reveals something of the general reception of the Wife of Bath.

Includes photostats of Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 75.I (Equat) among several additions to "Section A" of Oronzo Cilli's "Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist" (Edinburgh: Luna Press, 2019), and comments on Tolkien's concern with scribal…

John of Arderne's contemporary treatise "Fistula in Ano" is a manual for the medieval physician. Comparison with it indicates that "Chaucer's physician commits malpractice."

Two allusions to birds of mythology suggest the "conflicts of signification" in TC; their ambiguity makes the reader "an active participant in the poem."

Manly and Rickert were unable to trace the provenance of MS Phillipps 6570, now University of Texas Library 46, Austin. From the handwriting in notes, Wright deduces that Samuel Pegge the elder (1704-96) had MS Phillipps 6570 in his possession from…

A proverb in LGW (LGWPF 464-65) may in fact be a (translated) borrowing from a line in Gower's "Vox clamantis." If so, this is clear evidence of the argument raised by John Fisher that Chaucer was "substantially influenced by the older poet."

Examines the almost ubiquitous assumption that hypocrisy is reflected in PardPT and suggests an alternative reading in which the Pardoner's words do not reveal his morality but parody WBPT.

Comments on various assessments of the Prioress as a figure of false appearances and suggests that Chaucer undercuts PrT through the reference to Hugh of Lincoln, which ironically evokes the twelfth-century Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, who defended Jews.

Traces Chaucer's references to Jews in his works--HF, PrT, PardT, and ParsT--arguing that repeated references such as "cursed Jews" are largely generic, used by positive and negative characters alike.

Description of CT that comments on Chaucer's social range and authenticating detail, arranges the Pilgrims into social classes, and comments on the plot of each of the Tales.

In FrT, Chaucer humorously uses references to Dante's story of Frate Alberigo. In reference to "Inferno," canto 33, to reverse Dante's pattern of punishment and sin, Chaucer specifically names Dante; and Chaucer's description of Satan is fashioned…

Reconsiders Chaucer's use of Seneca in CT, adding twenty-one allusions to those already attested in previous scholarship.

Examines a series of passsages that characterize Criseyde's relations with her lovers.