Browse Items (16456 total)

Intertextual references in MerT invite recourse to medieval commentators on the Song of Solomon.

Examines the encomium on marriage in MerT and the speech on marital values in FranT. In their structural placements and their relations with their sources, the speeches do not so much critique or assert specific views on marriage as represent…

The traditional Galenic idea that conception requires female orgasm indicates that May is not pregnant by January. However, implicit and symbolic references to seed and fruit suggest that Damian has impregnated her.

May's request for pears in MerT indicates that she is pregnant, since medieval texts align the condition with a desire for unripe fruit. Moreover, medieval medical treatises recommend pears for the treatment of stomach disroders, "especially the…

Medieval contraceptive information includes mention of pears in discussion of techniques for preventing conception, so May's desire for a pear in MerT may indicate that she wants to deny January's foolish desire for offspring.

Explores the possible oriental analogues of SqT.

Among the narrative techniques employed to achieve authorial purposes, Chaucer's characterization of Dorigen in FranT shows her postponing her ultimately necessary conformity with male ideologies by contemplating authoritative tales based on those…

Surveys the use of the vocative, "thou" and "you" forms, and other "unadorned" forms of address in Chaucer's works to argue that in FranT Arveragus adopts an authoritative tone in sending Dorigen to meet Aurelius to fulfill her promise.

Much of the ambivalence of FranT comes from the various ways the characters perceive the world and the ways they act on these perceptions.

Advocates a multicutural approach to literature by comparing FranT to a thirteenth-century Japanese narrative of the Emperor Gosaga.

Compares the description of Virginia in PhyT with Wycliffite or Lollard materials to argue that Virginia is cast as a perfect image rather than a false one--a reflection of contemporary concern with images, their uses, and their abuses.

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."

Certain details of PardT, a story of "brotherhood and betrayal," suggest old stories of Judas Iscariot, the consummate betrayer.

Both PardT and the Pardoner's interruption of the Wife in WBT are "touches of the queer" that temporarily denaturalize heterosexual subjectivity, revealing its performative nature.

Characterizing the critics as essentialist, Gross traces views of the Pardoner's sexuality, beginning with Kittredge's and Curry's interests in secrecy and moral scapegoating.

Secrecy about sex cuts across genres and develops its own forms of rhetoric, as seen in works from Petrarch's "Secretum" through the "Roman de Silence," Margery Kempe, and PardPT.

The geographic references in PardT, of which the stile is the central figure, represent a loosely symbolic, "moral" landscape that adds to the moral tone of the tale.

Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of carnival and a comparison with fifteenth-century drama suggest that pilgrims' laughter is ambivalent and arises from engagement with paradox. The Pardoner's "quete" invites simultaneous complicity and disdain.

Discusses the Old Man in PardT as a parody of the Resurrection, rather than simply interpreting him allegorically.

Questions whether PrT is an exercise in dramatic irony in which the Prioress's anti-Semitism is exposed to ridicule. The mother in PrT is called "this newe Rachel," but Rachel was a Jewish mother lamenting the massacre of Jewish babies by a Gentil…

"The Siege of Jerusalem" is not simply another anti-Semitic text but instead one that responds humanely to the Jewish plight. Evidence indicates that this poem was written by an Augustinian canon at Bolton Priory, were there was regard for the…

Asserting the impossibility of a neutral approach and citing her Jewish ancestry, Paley considers PrT in its historical context.

Argues that the name Eglentyne ("rose") connoted sexual dalliance to Chaucer's audience. Fourteenth-century property records indicate affiliations between property owned by the priory at Stratford-at-Bow and the Bankside brothel, the Rose.

Examines historical and literary backgrounds of details in the GP sketch of the Prioress to argue that Chaucer leads us to judge her harshly. In her dress, mannerisms,and actions, the Prioress "is characterized by false piety and hypocrisy,and she…

Identifies a medieval tradition in which singing through the nose is a "sign of weak faith and lack of devotion," contributing to the satire of the Prioress in her GP sketch.