Browse Items (16459 total)

Although Ellesmere ownership in the fifteenth century cannot be proved, a preponderance of evidence indicates association with Bury St. Edmunds and a family circle that included the Pastons, Drurys, and De Veres, suggesting a context within which the…

Using Winchester College MS 33 as a touchstone for examining the difficulties of apprehending medieval texts, Hanna attributes the miscellaneous nature of collections of vernacular works in manuscripts to the difficulties of textual supply rather…

Revised versions of fourteen essays by Hanna, plus an introduction and two new essays: "On Stemmatics" and "On the Versions of 'Piers Plowman'."

Two recently identified Trinity College manuscripts written by the "Hammond" scribe (who worked in London ca. 1460-85), a prolific copier of Chaucer, contain medical, scientific, and legal materials, indicating that this scribe included among his…

Argues that Gg is the earliest surviving effort to create a corpus of Chaucer's poetry and that codicological analysis of the manuscript reveals much about the reception of Chaucer in the fifteenth century.

Shows how modern punctuation obscures subtleties of Chaucer's poetry, drawing examples from CT. Unpunctuated, Chaucer's verse has a rich poetic syntax, especially in the ways it compels readers to posit one meaning, adjust that meaning to a second…

Ovid undercuts epic male heroism, treating the emotional cost to the women deserted by Achilles, Theseus, Ulysses, and Aeneas and casting a shadow on these heroes in the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer (KnT, LGW, TC). Bakhtin's views…

Challenges assumptions underlying traditional studies of sources and relative chronology, suggesting that similarities between Deschamps's work and Chaucer's are evidence of late-fourteenth-century literary style and common "mentalites". Compares…

Chaucer puts the allegorized Latin epic to various uses in five works: HF, TC, KnT, MilT (as comic and unsuccesful rebellion against the hierarchies of KnT), and LGW

Four essays by various authors focus on editing Hoccleve's works, his variety of styles, and the relation of his works to those of Chaucer and Christine de Pizan. Includes a bibliography, an index, and an introduction that surveys critical…

Examines the "defense-of-women" section near the end of Hoccleve's "Regiment" (lines 5090-194) as a meditation on literary influence and the need for the poet to comment on political issues. The defense alludes to the Wife of Bath and to…

Unique Scottish attribution of "Walton's Prosperity" (a copy of "Index" 2820) to Chaucer in British Library MS Cotton Vitellius E. xi suggests fifteenth-century reception of Chaucer as "fount of proverbial wisdom."

Questions how well Thomas Hoccleve's translation of Christine de Pizan's "Epistre au dieu d'amours" captures the "wit of the original," arguing that the translation was influenced by LGW and by other Chaucerian works and suggesting that Christine's…

Explores the influence of medieval models of women on Barrett's poetry, arguing that, among others, Chaucer's works deserve greater attention in this respect. Considers Barrett's modifications of Anel in "Chaucer Modernized" and assesses aspects of…

Morris's effort to alter romance to the art of the community evokes the image of Chaucer as a forerunner. The envoy sends the book forth to meet its public and its master, Chaucer.

The influence of Lydgate's "Troy Book" on Metham's work is often cited by critics. However, in terms of scene and tone, Metham is more indebted to Chaucer's TC and "Legend of Thisbe" (LGW) than to Lydgate.

Because a Chaucer class is often a student's only medieval course, we should incorporate fifteenth-century Chaucerian writing into our classes to expose students to the active reception of literary works, the social and/or literary uses to which…

Though recent studies of Dunbar emphasize the traditional, the Scottish, and the Renaissance elements of his poetry, his aureate verse derives from familiarity with the rhetoric of Dante and Boccaccio, and his prosody from Chaucer. He is closer to…

Lane's previously unedited and unprinted pastoral poem of 1621, modeled on Spenser's "Shepheardes Calender", follows Chaucer in using verse narratives of varying genres (e.g., fabliau and romance) to illustrate its themes (the vices of the age;…

Though Capgrave's "Life of St. Katherine" does not mention Chaucer or his characters and does not quote from Chaucer's texts, it bears a marked similarity to the technique of TC. Capgrave seems interested in issues raised by Chaucer but not, like…

Linguistic claims that Chaucer's English is the origin of English literary language are self-fulfilling, based on the "myth," in the sense of Levi-Strauss, that Chaucer originated English poetic tradition. The OED credits Chaucer with the first…

Larry Benson's understanding of "queynte" as an adjective (SAC 9 [1987], no. 54) is untenable since it depends on a rhyme pattern inadmissible in Chaucer. The true meaning is the traditional one of "pudendum."

Prints eight previously published essays with a new introduction, all pertaining to the influence of bureaucratic and literary language on the standardization of English. Chronicling the development of Fisher's idea that standard written English…

Discusses Chaucer's epithetic adjectives, stock phrases, and asseverations. Also considers his transformations of traditional similes and metaphors into fresh ones for poetic effects.

Warfare and plague made English people of the later fourteenth century unprecedentedly aware of death. The Black Prince and John of Gaunt's first father-in-law, despite their heroic image in chronicles, died of unromantic diseases.