Browse Items (16443 total)

"Peple" and "folk" are marked terms in Chaucer's usage. In particular, "peple" is nearly always negative; "folk" is either neutral or positive. In Chaucer's translations (e.g., Bo), "folk" normally translates as "gens" or its cognates, while "peple"…

In MkP, the Host associates the Monk with a sacristan or cellarer. Norsworthy surveys historical cellarers and the role of the cellarer according to the Rule of St. Benedict, connecting bad cellarers with MkT. The Monk's narratives pertain to tyrants…

As used to describe the Monk in GP, the term pricking should not be understood in a sexual sense; review of sources, the OED, and the MED indicates that the term means "hard galloping."

In the GP description of the Prioress, the term conscience, used to describe her mental operations, implies not sensibility or emotion but rather prescription or governance. The Prioress's display is not emotive but mimetic, and her performance…

Bishop assesses how the apparatus ("peritext") in Speght's edition of Chaucer's Works evokes Chaucer as a living presence and situates his poetry in the midst of Tudor politics. Although Speght derives much of his peritext from Thynne and Stow, his…

Dorigen and Arveragus of FranT "demonstrate . . . deficiency in the cognitive skills inculcated by the medieval trivium," making them "vulnerable to the Orleans clerk's corruptions of the quadrivium." Weak critical thinking undermines their ability…

Virginius's fatal encounter with his daughter Virginia in PhyT can be seen as an instance of "torture," as Elaine Scarry defines it, the "most extreme" of political situations. In Scarry's terms and from Virginius's perspective,Virginia's existence…

Biggs argues that Decameron 3.4 is a source for MilT, inspiring the latter's density of detail, its religious sentiment, and many of its narrative features, particularly the Flood story. MilP also echoes Boccaccio's "Conclusione dell'autore" and its…

In RvT, Chaucer's references to language, lore, and the North both explore uncanny (in the Freudian sense) political differences among regions and reveal notions of nation. The North or Northernism plays a small but significant role elsewhere in CT,…

Argues that many late Middle English romances appeal to the gentry by coded references to the practice of "distraint," whereby gentry landowners were forced to take up knighthood or to pay fines. Concludes by comparing the attitudes expressed in…

Demonstrates that in Lydgate's "Disguising" the wives' use of Chaucerian "performative and legalistic speech acts" is set in evocative conflict with the "theatricality of monarchical justice," arguing that Lydgate learned from Chaucer's WBPT how…

The Middle English romance "Amis and Amiloun" explores the complex concept of "trewth" in the fourteenth century. This essay contends that the binding oath made by childhood friends is reminiscent of the agreement of the GP pilgrims, as well as…

Maintains that in Anel, a poem about the faithless lover Arcite, the poet narrator is also false both in specific details and in reference to his putative sources. Argues that Chaucer emphasizes "the deception inherent in his poetic process" in a…

Argues that the Man of Law depicts himself as a traditionalist in law. Through his presentation in GP, his conversation with the Host, and his Tale, the Man of Law separates himself from negative views of lawyers in the wake of the 1381 Rising. In…

Establishes how WBT's treatment of sovereignty and of civic and domestic institutions "redefine[s] English nobility as a national form of identity" that crosses class and gender boundaries. Further argues that Chaucer's anachronistic use of Dante in…

Connects the shapeless mass of flesh, which Christian baptism miraculously reforms into a baby in the Middle English romance "The King of Tars," with a bloodless mass described by Chaucer's contemporary Henry Daniel as an "elvysch cake." Claims that…

Proposes using a more philosophical reading of RvT to enhance understanding of Chaucer's "academic knowledge and his relationship with Ralph Strode." An academic joke in RvT relies on snubness and whiteness as stock examples of inseparable and…

Reinforces connections between the prologue to Lydgate's "Siege of Thebes" and CT. Claims Lydgate responds to Chaucer's caricature of the Monk in defense of monasticism; alludes to the Monk's portrait and the person of the Host in GP; borrows…

Observes that the glossary of Speght's 1598 edition of Chaucer's works lists "yape" for "jape"/"iape," meaning "trick," "joke," or sexual activity, but the 1602 edition does not; historical and contemporary word lists do not include "yape" unless…

Reveals how the common, generally lower-class forenames in the "Visio Anglie" portion of Gower's "Vox clamantis" reinforce the "degraded, bestial character" that Gower attributes to the rioters of 1381. Because the names could apply to animals or to…

Contends that data from the Canterbury Tales Project have not been widely used in Chaucer studies, partly on account of misunderstanding the project's purpose and function. That function is to produce evidence through analysis of witness groups, not…

Claims that although the prologue to Astr is addressed to Chaucer's son "little Lewis," it is structurally and rhetorically complex, appealing to sophisticated Latinists as well as to young English speakers. Argues that the prologue imitates Latin…

Posits that Philip Perry, an eighteenth-century priest and early practitioner of medievalism, was a pioneer in using original sources, among them Chaucer. Perry's unpublished notebooks contain detailed information on many medieval writers and their…

Suggests that NPT "reflects . . . the controversy which took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries between the secular clergy and the friars." Adduces use of the name "Russell" and several other parallels with French moralized analogues…

Analyzes Chaucer's use of the auxiliary verb "ginnan"/"gan," a periphrastic preterit, in contrast with simple preterits, to produce "distinctions in tempo, intensity, and manner." Comments on examples such as "gan behold"/"beheld", "gan to turne"/…