Browse Items (16456 total)

Griselda's career, when seen in light of the nominalist doctrine of justification known in fourteenth-century Oxford, parallels the pilgrimage of the faithful toward the Heavenly Jerusalem.

Late-medieval lay meditation extended the subject matter (previously the life of Christ) and the boundaries considered suitable for vernacular material. Evans treats Chaucer's TC, John Metham, Thomas Hoccleve, Nicholas Love, and anonymous works.

Riddy describes the literary accomplishments of Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas as they together "created Older Scots as a literary language." Includes recurrent references to Chaucer and Chaucerianism in the works of these poets.

Among poets who "present images of themselves both as poets and as readers" was Chaucer, though the idea-language model was not fully appropriate, as in HF.

Chaucer's use of an identifiable late-Gothic portrait technique can be seen by comparing one of the most familiar portraits of GP--the Prioress--with a roughly contemporary sculptural portrait of Philippa of Hainault. These late-Gothic portraits…

Past opinions are either that Chaucer was profoundly involved with the tale and reflected the period's emotionalism or that he was detached and disenchanted with the narrator. Actually the tale is an exposure of the "publicly sentimentalizing…

Scase summarizes the Latin, French, and English traditions of poetry in late medieval England, describing how major poets of the era engaged these traditions and created a new legacy. Chaucer engaged tradition by posing as an "inadequate" poet, by…

Claims that "medieval vernacular literature . . . is indexical . . . and created for a specific audience with direct access to the author" as well as the author's social and historical conditions. Focuses on Chaucer's "authorial humility" and…

Chaucer's four additions to the story of Virginia can be explained, and the whole poem understood, as clarifications of "her allegorical role as the human soul" in rejecting sin.

Compares narrative aspects of CT and Juan Ruiz's "Libro de buen amor," especially their uses of irony and an author-narrator; also explores relations between the Prioress and Ruiz's Dona Garoca.

Describes treatments of the Griselda story from Boccaccio's "Decameron" to Joan Timoneda's "El patrañuelo" (1567), tracing its transformation from a story intended to present Griselda as a model for humankind to a "manual for wives-to-be," including…

Compares versions of the Griselda story: Boccaccio's original; Petrarch's translation; and other rewritings by Bernat Metge, Christine de Pizan, and Chaucer (ClT), as well as the Spanish story in "Castigos y doctrinas que un sabio daba a sus hijas"…

Compares verbal and conceptual parallels among sententiae in Juan Manuel's "El Conde Lucanor" and in Chaucer's Mel.

Tallies instances where Mel shares lexical similarities with several of the exempla in Juan Manuel's "El Conde Lucanor," especially in proverbs.

McClellan discusses the strengths of Engle's Bakhtinian analysis of ClT, particularly Engle's "very valuable insight about Griselda's dialogic re-envoicing of Walter's discourse." McClellan argues, however, that Engle gives no psychological analysis…

Commemorates the life and accomplishments of Chaucer scholar and editor, Larry Benson.

Explores how late medieval English literature helps us to understand contemporary political events and aristocratic efforts to develop a successful rhetoric of power amid shifts in control. Chapter 1 focuses on Richard II, political discourse, and…

Through a close reading of various Ricardian texts, Williams examines the building of what appears to be a contemporary anti-Ricardian rhetoric. Astr implies loyalty to English monarchy, rather than personal loyalty to Richard; KnT and Mel offer a…

Argues that Chaucer's texts engage translation as a political tool. Rom indicates a balance of resistance to France and outreach to its cultural products; Bo can be read as suspicious of royal power during the late Ricardian period; and ClT…

Sixteen essays encompass the interpretation of textual cruxes in Middle English, lexicography in the past and present, current and older problems in English usage, and the history of English spelling.
For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search…

Considers the diction of Chaucer, his successors, and CT editor Thomas Tyrwhitt as part of a larger argument for the interrelationship of late medieval and early modern poetic language.

Chaucer is a philosophical realist whose naïve narrators, tale-within-a-tale structuring, and focus on irony and linguistic slippage enable him to assert Truth while exposing the limitations of individual human perspectives. Williams examines the…

Taylor surveys the development of attention to language and linguistics in Chaucer studies, commenting on the usefulness of developments that enable increased attention to sociolinguistic uses rather than philological forms. She reads RvT as a work…

One hundred and thirty-five selections by various authors, ranging widely in linguistics theory and practice, English language history, contrastive linguistics and language acquisition, and discourse analysis. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer,…

Seventeen essays on various issues in Old and Middle English linguistic study: language contact, borrowing, code-switching, spelling, versification, etc. For four essays pertain to Chaucer, search for Language Contact in the History of English under…