Browse Items (16459 total)

Originally published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Language Teaching (Waseda University) 51 (1996). Challenges M. A. K. Halliday's 1988 description of the prose style of Astr, focusing on the use of second-person pronouns and calling for…

Gives positive evidence of final "-e" in Chaucer's rhyme, especially in thirty-two rhyme sequences in which the distinction between two successive rhymes is made only by presence in one and absence from the other of final "-e".

Surveys the history and state of scholarship on a key concept of fourteenth-century nominalism--the dialectic of divine omnipotence--and its applications to Chaucerian and other Middle English texts. Warns that a view of the "potentia absoluta" as…

Milowicki advances several "speculations" about Chaucer's "French connections," particularly his possible introduction at the French court to the "study of the stars" and to the controversy of the relationship between astronomy and astrology…

Argues that "by studying Chaucer's handling of the story told by Boccaccio we may form a very good idea of the direction in which he modified the received French fabliau (if there was one)." In Boccaccio's tale, there is no individuation of the…

Much of the scholarship on Chaucer's "Adam" has focused on identification. But "many of Chaucer's shorter poems are genre pieces in which personal statement emerges by way of a treatment of conventional matters; a traditional type of poem is…

Reads Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," not as a "sequel" to TC, but as a "further displacement of the history of Troy," one that "questions the value of the vicarious experience of reading" fiction, particularly as it is realized in the…

Surveys the "global reach" of the literatures and languages that underlie the sources and settings of CT (with particular attention to SqT), and describes the multilingual, international range of translations, modernizations, adaptations, and other…

Cox examines verse, style, and several cruces (textual and narrative) in PrT to clarify Chaucer's ironic technique and to argue that the "prioress's hold on reality is [. . .] weak and her language correspondingly lax, with a concern for decorum far…

Staunton describes Shakespeare's allusions to Marlowe in As You Like It. Touchstone's and Rosalind's references to Troilus as a lover engage TC.

Documents where wife beating was both allowed and forbidden in medieval canon and civil law, often presented in analogies to bishops' treatment of clerics and lords' treatment of slaves. Kelly comments on instances in CT, particularly in WBP.…

Describes the "scope and range of Tudor responses to the Middle Ages," tracing the "literary afterlife" of Chaucer, Tudor "editions and redactions" of medieval romances, and "Elizabethan dramatizations of medieval history." Poetic and editorial…

Summarizes various kinds of influence Dominicans may have had on Chaucer, Gower, and Langland. From the lumping of Dominicans with other friars in literary portraits, to the influence of individual Dominican writers, to Dominican notions of salvation…

Traces the development of the traditional story of Herostratos, the arsonist of Diana's temple in Ephesus, and comments (pp. 23-24) that, in light of its inconsistencies with the traditional account, Chaucer's reference (HF 1844) to one who set fire…

Verbal action in Chaucer may take the form of a series of verbal encounters, as in BD; or a long monologue, as Dorigen's is and Chauntecleer's may as well be. Chauntecleer talks himself out of fear of dreams; Dorigen talks herself out of suicide;…

Focuses on the scene of "intimacy" between Pandarus and Criseyde in TC and its excision from Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," arguing that Chaucer's expansion/embellishment of the original in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" compels the audience to…

Exemplifies the recurrent concern with alchemy in western culture and literature, including description of Chaucer's depiction of it in CYPT, along with his reputation for scientific knowledge.

Argues that both Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun--and their "respective 'poetics'"--are "at issue" in BD 321–34 (where the "Roman de la Rose" is named), and in GP 725–46 ("Chaucer's Apology"). These evince Chaucer's deep, sophisticated, and…

Traces the process by which Chaucer's biography developed through Bale, Leland, Spenser, Speght, Thynne, Dryden, Urry,and Johnson. Topics include laureation, Chaucer in print, nationalistic and humanistic impulses, and Chaucer as a symbol of…

The article analyses and describes a Chaucerian key-word "danger" and its derivative "dangerous" in respect of etymology, semantic development, frequency of occurence, form, riming structure, grammatical and semantic collocation, association, and…

Chaucer's Nature, when the term is explicitly used, is an "idee fixe" essentially based on the orthodox medieval conception. The writer, however, examines the interest and attitude with which Chaucer represented the various aspects of humanity, and…

Examines Chaucer's use of "sad" in his works. The manuscript reading in ROM A211 makes it clear that he probably did not bear in mind the modern meaning of "sorrowful" or "mourning."

The article, which follows essentially the same theoretical line of approach as the same author's "Semological Structure of English" (Tokyo, 1970; originally a Yale dissertation), presents a description of the meaning of verbs of motion in Old and…

Language and word studies.

Gives frequency of "gan" in each work by Chaucer, an exhaustive list of verbs in this construction, and rhythmical patterns according to frequency. Chaucer used the "gan" periphrasis in a conscious, stereotyped way.