Browse Items (16443 total)

FranT raises problems rather than providing a solution in the Marriage Group. Like ClT, it poses "a problematic marriage agreement" at the outset; like MerT, it shows that disastrous consequences can result from introducing non-marital love into a…

Traces views of the medieval church and of Chaucer's sources for BD and PF. Treats love based on reason, affection, and friendship in sources: Aelred of Rievaulx, Jean de Meun, Thomas Aquinas, and Aristotle.

The Aristotelian view that the marital relationship can involve friendship (found not in Augustine but in Aelred of Rievaulx and Thomas Aquinas) influenced Jean de Meun, translator of Aelred. De Meun's treatment of the matter in "Roman de la Rose"…

Knowles views deployments of the medieval concept of "service" (which encompassed an elaborate network of interpersonal and institutional relationships) in Langland, Julian of Norwich, and TC.

Chaucer altered his source to make Troilus guilty of the sin of sloth, depicting him as one who dislikes "love's work" and who rarely does it. By exploring this concept of sin in a courtly context, Chaucer shifts the moral focus of his work, causing…

Includes twelve essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors on affect, periodization, queer history, and Chaucer's and Shakespeare's versions of the story of Troilus and Criseyde/Cressida. For nine essays that pertain to Chaucer,…

Challenges the discussion of Angela M. Lucas and Peter J. Lucas (SAC 15 [1993], no. 215), arguing that the marriage of Dorigen and Arveragus "is a poetic expression of freedom and love brought to life by the power of 'trouthe'," a force so much…

Traces Troilus's evolution toward an ever-higher understanding of cosmic Love.

Critical edition of BD, HF, PF, and LGW with introduction.

TC indicates that love letters were written on paper in England as early as the 1380s. Uses TC to frame connection of paper with verse love epistles and their fictions.

CT examines such religious practices as pilgrimage, pardon, and penance within medieval soteriological traditions, which often analyzed redemption in commercial language. Particularly in GP and PardT, "Chaucer's understanding of the terms of…

This anthology of lyrics and excerpts includes Troilus's Song (TC 1.400-29), in Middle English.

Although classical and medieval rhetorics stress conventional "topoi," love poetry also supposedly emphasizes originality and sincerity. Certain classical and medieval poets including Chaucer ironically play off convention against their own ideas.

Lynch explains the centrality of the legend of Troy to European narratives as a symbol of human instability and as a mirror of the present, especially in late medieval London. In comparison to its sources, TC keeps war on the periphery of the love…

Suggests that Chaucer purges "sensuality" from Boccaccio's "Filostrato" when he adapts it as TC, and demonstrates in detail where the quality is consistently present in the Boccaccio's poem.

Unlike its analogues, MerT develops themes and images associated with the myth of Proserpine's rape and Ceres's search for her daughter. As a result, both May and January are presented as culpable and victimized.

Discusses Chrétien's "Knight of the Cart," including several points of comparison with TC: the poems as command performances, their inclusion of songs of love, and the possibility that the heroes are presented as humorous.

Sidhu surveys recent attention to gender in medieval studies and assesses the "continuing marginalization" of gender studies. Recurrent references to Chaucer studies.

These works use the language and motifs of love to distinguish gendered passion. In particular, the diction and imagery of love associated with Criseyde in TC show her, unlike the male characters, to be motivated more by fear and a sense of honor…

Before TC and KnT, most romances in England were Anglo-Norman and largely uninfluenced by the conventions of courtly love and the Petrarchan tradition. The reputation of Chaucer's works overshadows that of these other works and their more practical…

Considers relations between moral virtue and courtly love in a variety of Chaucer's works and Scottish Chaucerian works, analyzing a series of pairings--Rom and William Dunbar's "Golden Targe," Chaucer's Boethian poems and "The Kingis Quair," HF and…

Saunders traces elements of Chaucer's "rarefied treatment of love" to Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, troubadours, trouvères, and Ovid, arguing that Chaucer developed a notion of "fin' amors" to treat philosophical questions as well as the…

Ovid's views on humanity's decline from the first age influence Chaucer's "Former Age": Chaucer's use of Lamech in WBT, SqT, and Anel; and his distrust of rhetorical ornament (as evidenced by the Franklin and BD, for example).

Explores the characterizations in TC of Troilus, Pandarus, and, most extensively, Criseyde, explaining how Chaucer modifies their antecedents in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" by adapting the conventions and rhetoric of courtly love and creates rich…

Despite the widely accepted claim that French and Middle English Breton lays are concerned primarily with love, argues that the English poems pay relatively little attention to romantic love, and are more concerned with identity, family separation…