Browse Items (16534 total)

Critiques earlier opinions on ClT, finding them to be flawed by imposition of irrelevant standards and failure to treat the tale's success in evoking "compassionate wonder." Explores the developments of characterization in the tale and a growing…

Glosses "blanket" in SumT 3.1751 as a "ragout made of the breast or shoulder, generally of veal" rather than a piece of cloth, and suggests that the context where it appears indicates "the gourmet tendencies" of the Summoner's friar.

Identifies a number of "accidental errors" in John M. Manly and Edith Rickert's 1940 "The Text of the Canterbury Tales"--some typographical; others, errors in data.

Characterizes the Man of Law in the GP as only apparently wise and busy, concerned with acquiring wealth, and gifted with an "unusual memory." Further, his opinion of Chaucer's writings expressed in MLP is "somewhat pretentious and condescending."…

Qualifies scholarly claims that Sir Thomas Wyatt was the first to use "terza rima" in English poetry, observing that Chaucer used the verse form in a brief passage of "The Complaint to His Lady."

Offers history of the rise of the mendicant orders and details the development of anti-fraternal criticism as background to the characterizations of Chaucer's Friar and the friar in SumT. Compares "point by point" Chaucer's characters with the "chief…

Identifies several possible ambiguities of pronoun reference, syntax, and punning in the GP description of the Summoner (1.649-52), suggesting that they may make the character even more immoral and unreliable than he is usually understood to be.

Edits KnT, with an Introduction, bottom-of-page textual notes, end-of-text explanatory notes and glossary, and appendices (by R. T. Davies, reprinted), on Chaucer's language and meter, astrology and astronomy, and suggestions for further reading. The…

Introduces pronunciation of Chaucer's English, offering a series of general rules, explained in relationship to Modern English, both "British and American" and designed for "teachers and students." Also includes transcriptions of nine passages in…

Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate that these readings were released in LP recording and/or cassette tape recurrently by Whitlock's, Educational Audio Visual, and Lexington Records with slightly varied titles. The selections from Chaucer, read…

Introduces and anthologizes examples of humor in English literature, and critical analyses of it, arranged topically by humorous technique; includes Nevill Coghill's modern translation of the GP descriptions of the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner under…

Item not seen. WorldCat record indicates this includes selections from LGW Prologue, read by Frank Silvera.

Examines the imagery, symbols, and themes of BD, HF, PF, and LGW, focusing on the themes of love (courtly and spiritual) and the poet's responsibilities in depicting love, with attention to various aspects of style, form, and structure, and recurrent…

Reconsiders possible explanations for the evident inaccuracy of the number of pilgrims given in GP 1.24 as twenty-nine. Suggests two possibilities: the Squire may have been a later addition and/or the addition of the "last five pilgrims" might have…

Anthologizes a selection of works by Chaucer and by Shakespeare, with a brief general introduction to each and bottom-of-page glosses and notes. The selection from Chaucer, edited by Bethurum and based on the text by Walter W. Skeat, includes GP,…

Contrasts lack of commentary on birth control in ParsT with its presence in the letters of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné, arguing that Chaucer was pre-Malthusian ("prémalthusien") rather than proto-Malthusian ("protomalthusien").…

Suggests that Chaucer's astrological references in FranT and PF, particularly the deterministic "phases of the moon, " the Great Year, and the depiction of Scipio, are likely to have influenced W. B. Yeats' prose treatise, "A Vision" (1925; rev.…

Provides historical background for Chaucer's associations of millers with bagpipes in GP 1.565 and in RvT 1.3927, assessing them as an important characterizing details--vivid, realistic, appropriate, and symbolically suggestive of lechery and…

Suggests intertextual connections among Hyginus's "Poetica Astronomica," Boccaccio's "De Genealogia Deorum," and aspects of Chaucer's Mars.

Challenges the critical "platitude" that love and marriage are incompatible in Chaucer. Identifies a number of instances in Chaucer's works where love and marriage clearly coincide, and argues that TC is only an "apparent exception" in this regard.…

Chronological anthology of English and American poetry, beginning with selections from Chaucer (Truth, Gent, GP 1-30, and NPT), with bottom-of-page glosses and notes. Text from F. N. Robinson's edition; preceded by a brief "Note on Reading Chaucer's…

Clarifies--etymologically and musicologically--that "cordes" mentioned in HF 696 refers to instrumental strings, not to musical chords. the latter being anachronistic in Chaucer's era.

Provides background to Chaucer's "championship of the secular clergy . . . and his satire of the fraternal orders," and considers how this attitude reflects a general, "secular tradition," appreciative of allegorical poetry and found in works by Jean…

Distinguishes between Chaucer the poet. and Chaucer the pilgrim-narrator of CT, characterizing the "persona" of the latter as "shy" but "gregarious," one who admires the "values" of high society, the "material prosperity" of the bourgeoisie, and good…

Suggests on textual and etymological grounds that "verye"/"werye" in MilT 1.3485 be emended to "nerye," reading the line to mean "May the White Pater Noster save (us) from (the perils of the) night."