Browse Items (16456 total)

Rhetoric is the Pardoner's mode of existence, but, despite his success with rural audiences, evil intentions negate his moral persuasiveness in the eyes of the pilgrims and the modern reader.

In LGW, Chaucer sets classical action in the context of Christian notions of moral intention; he poses a range of subtly differentiated portraits of difficulty in recording truth in human terms and human time. Knowability, the narrator's presence,…

Both Spearing and Leicester focus on the question of authorial intention as an interpretive norm. By acknowledging that Chaucer may intend private allusions, Spearing opens the possibility that one audience's "use" is another audience's "allusion,"…

Suggests that Ret should be considered as a rhetorical appeal for the prayers of readers, who are encouraged to reflect on their own readings of CT and to engage in the self-scrutiny that Ret exemplifies.

Argues that aural reading--the reading aloud of a written text--lasted much longer in English tradition than is normally assumed.

An undergraduate Chaucer course exploring the late fourteenth century as a time of political, economic, religious, technological, and epistemological change can both enrich students' experiences of the texts and help them realize that…

Surveys the structure, frequency, and functions of interjections in the English language, tracing discussion of this word class in linguistic commentary and in Beowulf, MilT, and modern comic books.

Tabulates, describes, and analyzes the interjections used in RvT, summarizing their functions, etymologies, morphologies, and semantics, and using the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse to explore the extent to which the usage in RvT is…

Though CT was neither orally prepared nor heavily alliterative, traces of both traditions are present in the work. The oral tradition almost certainly influenced Chaucer's work more predominantly. The evidence of formulaic diction in CT is strong;…

Annual bibliography of the International Courtly Literature Society, listing 806 items, briefly annotated in some cases. The subject index lists thirty-two Chaucerian works and topics.

Ph.D. Dissertation. Cambridge University 1988.

The translator of "The Boke of Coumfort" borrowed from Chaucer's Bo when translating Boethius, Christianizing and expanding both.

Modern phenomenological hermeneutics offers a profitable method for interpreting Chaucer. Five basic hermeneutical principles can be illustrated by a close reading of FranT, including the imitation in real life inspired by the tale.

Fourteen essays by various authors, plus an introduction, honoring the scholarship and teaching of Alan Gaylord. The essays mirror Gaylord's work and methods, including exegetical historicism, close reading, prosodic criticism, and pedagogy. The…

Chaucer had a rare sense of genre for a medieval writer. Not only was he "one of a small number of generic innovators," but he also reinterpreted and practiced genres and had a "following of practitioners." Kelly surveys Chaucer's use of genre…

Ten essays on medieval theories of interpretation and modern approaches to medieval texts. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Interpretation: Medieval and Modern under Alternative Title.

Explores how vernacular translators of Jacobus de Voragine's "Legenda Aurea" lend theological authority to their works by appropriating or emulating the onomastic etymologies in Jacobus's work. Includes discussion of Chaucer's close following of…

In the drawing of the Canterbury Pilgrims, Blake's antithetical method, employing ironic juxtaposition and counterpoint, invites the viewer to participate in the exercise of the Divine Vision of forgiveness by distinguishing "States from Individuals…

Unlike the dream interpretations in the works of Freud and Milton, dreams in Chaucer's poems reveal the strategies of power and gender that shape the interpretation of dreams. Discusses WBP, NPT, and TC.

Because Alisoun in MilT and May in MerT are exempted from retribution for their active roles in adultery and deception, readers are invited to ask how women are or are not fully part of the systems by which we conceptualize accountability for…

Chaucer's translation of "Roman de la Rose" and his indirect references to Oiseuse (Idleness) in his own poetry illuminate her significance, normally explained by critics as having exegetical or courtly meaning. LGWP, KNT, SNT, and ParsT reinforce…

Discusses the blanks left for illustration in Corpus Christi College MS 61, suggesting a possible strategy for prospective illustrations, including initials: the illustration would have emphasized choice as an aspect of narrative structure. The…

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.

Argues that the "interpretive reading" underlying T. H. White's uses of William Twiti's "The Art of Hunting" as a source in "The Once and Future King" is similar to medieval rhetorical techniques of amplification. Exemplifies similar kinds of…

Contrasts Chaucer's Troilus and the title character of "Sir Tristrem," with comments on brutality and violence in "Athelston," exploring the "nobility" or lack of nobility of masculine protagonists in courtly romance. Devotion and affection dominate…