Browse Items (16470 total)

Comments on translations/modernizations of TC from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. Considers modern problems with reproducing the nuances of Chaucer's courtly idiolect, particularly "courtly value words" such as "goodly," "fresshe,"…

Surveys the "brilliantly imaginative, formally experimental, and socially self-aware" poetry of early sixteenth-century English, with emphasis on its transitions from Chaucerian tradition and to Shakespearean tradition, the importance of Ovidian…

Assesses the transitions in BD as devices Chaucer uses to "direct the reader toward the hard statements [the poem] makes about deprivation, consolation, the hazards of fortune and the consequences of decision." Divisions in the conversation between…

The "coillons" interchange between the Pardoner and the Host at the end of PardT goes much deeper than previously noticed. Echoing a passage from the "Roman de la Rose" found in some manuscripts, the lines evoke a transgressive inversion of the "nut…

Argues that the use of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in LGW reveals a queer critique of the patristic tradition of hermeneutics.

Chaucer refuses to allow closure in TC, either for Troilus or for the poem itself. For Chaucer, transgression is inevitable, closure is impossible, and the poet seems to "celebrate" this fact.

Examines concern with slander and defamation during Richard II's reign as context for a reading of ManT, contending that ManT reveals Chaucer's skepticism towards the power of language as a method of political control.

MkP reflects the Monk's anxiety about cross-dressers such as Zenobia, whom he orientalizes in MLT as a monstrous threat to traditional authority. Eventually humiliated and punished, Zenobia trades her helmet for a woman's headdress.

Considers BD and the metaphor of chess, particularly the way in which the rules of the game are remediated in the action of the poem. Looks at gender-crossing in relation to BD, but transcends previous arguments focusing on the chess allegory.…

Phillips investigates "the intersection between unofficial speech, pastoral practice, and literary production in late medieval England," focusing on pastoral and penitential injunctions against gossip, "idle talk," and "janglyng" and on literary…

Studies genre in CT, "Piers Plowman," and Gower's "Mirour de l'omme," focusing on estates satire, "redemptive discourse," the mirror tradition, legal discourse, and "genealogies of sin."

Combining cognitive and ethnographic approaches to proverb study, Bradbury examines proverb use in Fragment 1 of CT. She explores the limitations of the cognitive theories of Richard Honeck, on the one hand, and George Lakoff and Mark Turner, on the…

Historical-pragmatic analysis of the formal features of texts in manuscript and in print (e.g., punctuation, spelling, capitalization, script, font, etc.) in relation to the texts' "socio-cultural" functions--linguistic, aesthetic, ethical,…

Shakespeare's alterations of KnT in A Midsummer Night's Dream and (with John Fletcher) in Two Noble Kinsman resulted from the exigencies of the stage and produced works of a new tenor and thematic emphasis.

Contemplates the personification of Imagination (as in the cases of personified Nature and Reason) from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, with attention to the particulars inherent in the process of characterization. Focuses on "uncertainty of…

Surveys evidence of the likelihood that Chaucer learned Italian from "Lombards" (especially members of the Bardi family) who were living in London and involved in affairs of trade and banking. Demonstrates how Chaucer adapted his Italian literary…

Focuses on Gower's Tale of Florent as a poem with its own logic and beauty, using Chaucer's WBT to clarify Gower's purpose.

The WBT and its analogues have in common the archetype of transformation from ugly age to beautiful and fertile youthfulness. The psychic transformation of unconsciousness to consciousness, a phenomenon central to human individual and collective…

Furnivall's printed transcriptions of TC manuscripts have created a legacy of errors, especially in editions based on Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 61 (Cp). Hewett-Smith identifies errors in Robinson's edition and exemplifies the transmission…

Questions the precision of transcribing manuscripts in electronic editing as undertaken for The "Canterbury Tales" Project and the Middle English Grammar Project. Uses examples from MLT to demonstrate that even graphetic transcription does not…

In NPT, Chaucer combines a learned, polysyllabic vocabulary with Anglo-Saxon, monosyllabic words. Shifts in vocabulary create the tale's mock-heroic tone, as a "drop" from Latinate to English words at the end of a passage undercuts the preceding…

Applies notions of links between tale and teller to apocryphal tales, an approach suggested by the medieval notion of "auctoritee." Concludes that post-medieval editions of CT do not "accurately" reflect the medieval understanding of the work as "a…

Frame-tale science fiction novel with echoes of CT, e.g., quotation of GP 1.12 on the opening page, recurrent references to travelers as "pilgrims," a galactic ship named "Geoffrey," interpolated tales (although purportedly autobiographical), etc.…

Chaucer celebrates "man's simultaneous transcendence and absurdity": in MilT, Nicholas's psaltery playing may be onanistic; in MerT, January's praise of Damian as "discreet," "secree," and "manly" may suggest his willingness to allow May…

Wonders how the transgender experience allows a "trans textuality" and offers an example of this proposed theoretical approach to manuscripts via a consideration of the Ellesmere manuscript.