Browse Items (16470 total)

Argues that an analogue (perhaps source) of Chaucer's image of a coin-shaped ("farthing") spot of grease in his GP description of the Prioress (1.134) is "Clef d'amors," line 3236. The play in the French may derive from a punning echo of "speck" and…

Explores anatomical and associative parallels between Alison of MilT and the weasel, an animal to which she is likened via simile (1.3234); maintains that the connections lend symbolic depth to the characterization.

Exploring the "bukke and hare" of Th 7.756 for their "traditional attributes" rather than as suggestive game animals, documents that their associations with timidity and, reading "bukke" as "goat rather than "male deer," sexual pursuit.

Argues that Chaucer's references to a swallow in Alison's song (MilT 1. 3257-58) and to a dove in the Pardoner's claim about preaching (PardP 6.397) are suggestive, and may well derive from his familiarity with the two birds.

Describes the involvement of Thomas Chaucer and Thomas Swynford in matters related to the deposition and death of Richard II, suggesting that they help to account for the tone and perspective in Purse (especially the Envoy) and Henry's swift and…

Comments on the uses of "master" and "Rabbi" in SumT 3.2184-88 as a means to convey the hypocrisy of the Summoner's friar (along with Chaucer's Friar in GP 1.261). The references are rooted in the biblical source, Matthew 23:5-11.

Reads the noun "swan" as "swain" in the rhyming comparison with "Jovinyan" in SumT 3.1930, adducing logic, consistency of imagery, and source material.

Explicates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Italian sonnet "Chaucer," emphasizing its imitation of aspects of Chaucer's style, particularly drawn from BD.

Adduces the testimony of modern archer, Robert P. Elmer, corroborating that peacock feathers are high quality material for fletching, and a notion thought to underlie Chaucer's reference in the GP description of the Yeoman (1.104).

Includes a selection from GP (ll. 1-719) and PardPT in J. U. Nicolson's modern English translation (1939), with a brief appreciative introduction.

Reproduces in black and white the London National Portrait Gallery panel portrait of Chaucer (p. 2), preceded by a brief comment on Chaucer's life, with reference to William Dunbar's praise of him, mention of the TC frontispiece portrait (Cambridge,…

Reads Chaucer's summary of Virgil's "Aeneid" in Book 1 of HF as comic--a parody of several practices of "exegetical grammar," including translation, "dictiones ethicae" (soliloquies), paraphrase, and moral interpretation. The purpose of the parody is…

Describes how Chaucer's "mirth reveals his moral premises" and conveys joy throughout his poetic corpus, explaining how the early dream poems, in varying degrees, communicate the progress of the comic narrators toward greater moral and philosophic…

Summarizes each of the "comic" tales of CT, with appreciative, inferential, scene-by-scene commentary on techniques of characterization, situations, and enlivening details that make the Tales "amusing." Essentially farcical, the action of MilT…

Describes Chaucer's life and works, with an introduction to historical backgrounds, a chronology of events, a summary of critical reception, a bibliography for further reading, and an index. The biography emphasizes dates and events, and the survey…

Identifies "traces of the primitive folk tale" that underlie the Cupid and Psyche myth and WBT, and maintains Chaucer's familiarity with some version of the myth. Compares and contrasts aspects of the Tale with its English analogues, and argues that…

Argues that children in Chaucer's works are generally depicted with "tender pity," discussing narratives in which children have relatively prominent roles: MLT, MkT, ClT, PhyT, and PrT.

Demonstrates the "stylistic virtuosity" of NPT, consistent with its "multiple perspective," commenting on the plain style of the widow frame, "cinematic" details in descriptions, the quality and comedy of direct dialogue, the "graver rhetoric of the…

Argues that in PardPT the Pardoner "is parodying himself--deliberately magnifying his character and conduct in order to portray himself as a monster of evil" exaggerating so that the other pilgrims will interpret him comically, as a "charming rogue,"…

Reviews attempts to clarify Chaucer's reference to Morpheus's companion "Eclympasteyr," found in BD line 167 and also found in Froissart's "Paradys d'Amour" as "Enclimpostair." Argues on linguistic and literary grounds that the name in "plain…

Scans two lines of GP (49 and 173), "usually felt to be awkward," arguing that in light of comparable Middle English examples the syllable counts and stress patterns of these lines are consistent with the "iambic-decasyllabic theory."

Argues that in ClT Chaucer "has successfully humanized the psychological motivation of both Walter and Griselda," de-emphasizing the "supernatural" aspects of the characterizations found in analogous narratives, and depicting his protagonists with…

Tabulates and analyzes Chaucer's use of function words before nouns and pronouns, showing that his usage "resembles in the main that of modern English," although in at least one respect more similar to "modern vulgar English than modern standard…

Contrasts the "quasi-heretical," "so-called Augustinian" views of sex in marriage as always sinful with those of Thomas Aquinas and others who treat sexual love in marriage as sinless when consistent with "amicitia" (friendship) and reason, arguing…

Argues that MerT "characterizes the Merchant" consistently, attributing several "awkward" passages in the Tale to the Merchant's engagement with an ongoing "debate" about marriage and considering his "pretensions" and "intense personal involvement"…