Browse Items (16459 total)

Assesses Boccaccio's and Chaucer's attitudes toward their sources by examining the relations of their narrators with Cressida in "Filostrato" and TC. Cressida's legendary status as dishonest and inconstant had been established before Boccaccio and…

Suggests that as an example of several kinds of prophetic dream described by Macrobius, as an expression of wish fulfillment, and on the authority of Thynne, BD should be called "The Dream of Chaucer." Argues that the poem was probably recited for…

Comments on changes in the "canon" of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English literature, including the rise in importance of LGW.

With the exception of Dorigen, the women in the Marriage Group (WBPT, ClT, MerT, FranT) are similar to Boethius's character Philosophy: they assume authoritative roles, echo some of her sentiments, and sometimes recall her voice. Dorigen's behavior…

Compares PrT with Gonzalo de Berceo's thirteenth-century "Judiezno" (Little Jewish Child) from his "Los Milagros de Nuestra Seʹora."

Facing-page (French-English) translation of the earliest French treatise on the astrolabe (1362), a work that shares the same source as Astr. The introduction assesses the relations among Pélerin's "Practique," Astr, and their source text, John of…

Examines semantic and syntactic features of infinitive clauses used as nominals in GP and NPT. Makes several diachronic observations: in this stage of the development of English, to was becoming the standard infinitive marker, although there were…

Computer-generated, line-by-line comparison of two editions of CT, except for the lines lacking in the Hengwrt manuscript and other lines not included in either of the editions. The comparison indicates where the editions vary in syntax or spelling.…

Report of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronological analysis of the oak panel of the UCLA Chaucer portrait, indicating a date of about 1400. This makes it likely that the portrait "represents a close likeness of the poet" at the end of his life.

Modern English reading (Nevill Coghill translation) of RvT, ShT, WBP, FranT, and SumT, each accompanied by readings of the GP description of the teller. Read by Fenella Fielding and Martin Starkie.

Two essays: 1) "The Place of Philology" argues that the MLE is Chaucer's late and revised addition to CT and that it is properly followed by WBP; Patterson confronts the manuscript evidence and suggests several structural and thematic continuities…

Dutch verse translation of CT, with introduction and notes.

Walker assesses the three allusions to the Trojan War in NPT and argues that they underlie parallel concerns in Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare emulates Chaucer's skeptical attitude toward the Trojan War.

Discusses the semantic possibility of the Middle English phrase "as he/she that" in comparison with its Old French original "com cil/cele qui."

A comprehensive rhyming dictionary showing a full line for each rhyme word (showing seven lines for rhyme royal), based on Blake's text from the Hengwrt manuscript.

A selective bibliography of Chaucer studies, covering linguistic approaches through 1993, arranged topically under ten headings: Bibliographies (30 items); Manuscripts, Facsimiles, and Editions (26); Textual Criticism (53); English Linguistic…

Surveys the sustained influence of Italian culture in England from Chaucer through Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Gascoigne, Marston, Fletcher, and Shakespeare. Summarizes the development of Italian city-states and explores topics such as Italian influence…

Daróczy outlines the Latin rhetorical tradition as background to Chaucer's techniques of characterization in GP: groupings of pilgrims, omitted details, the order and juxtaposition of the portraits, epithets, and summarizing lines. Emphasizes…

Surveys the verbal representation of numerals in Chaucer and elsewhere in Middle English and comments on the Germanic basis of composite representations (e.g., "four and twenty") and development of French-influenced forms (e.g., "twenty-four").…

Ovid's "Metamorphoses" is crucial to the development of characterization in western European literature. Ovid complicates the conventional "divided consciousness" of earlier characterizations through relativism, rationalization, rhetoric…

Gauges the influence of Navarre on English literature at two crucial junctures: the Norman Conquest and during the march of Edward, the Black Prince, when both Chaucer and John Chandos were involved. Reproduces several archival documents and includes…

Assesses various medieval depictions of personified Nature lamenting human error, and comments on Prioress's "ambiguous" motto (Amor Vincit Omnia) as a "reordering" of the phrase "omnia vincit Amor" from Virgil's tenth "Eclogue," modified by the…

A history of laughter in Western literature, focusing on the relation between laughter and literature, and surveying ancient, medieval, and modern traditions. In his Introduction, Sanders credits Chaucer with associating the roles of the feminine…

Describes C. S. Lewis's formulation of courtly love and applies it to TC, arguing that Chaucer exaggerates certain of its features to show its "weaknesses" (particularly through humor, Pandarus, and the narrator) and to replace it with divine love.

Post-structuralist analysis of Chaucer's use of Dante as a source in HF and TC, and Spenser's use of Chaucer's BD in his "Daphnaida" and HF in his Mutabilitie Cantos.