Browse Items (16469 total)

In determining Chaucer's plan for CT, too much attention has been placed on the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscripts at the expense of the other eighty-one manuscripts, where the order of the tales may differ. In Ad3 (British Library MS Additional…

Demonstrates the dangers of over-reliance on Hengwrt, Ellesmere, or any limited number of privileged manuscripts in establishing the text of CT, arguing for attention to all available material.

Examines characteristic features of the two similar scribal hands of CT manuscript En1, correcting errors and emphases in Manly and Rickert's analysis (1940). The scribes appear initially to have divided their labors before Scribe 2 completed and…

Argues that digital imaging of all available reproductions of CT manuscripts is necessary to make a pictorial history of the manuscripts. Reproductions of Hengwrt show changes over time.

Describes how the difficulties and decisions involved in transcribing manuscripts for the "Canterbury Tales" Project parallel fifteenth-century scribal practice.

Analyzes textual variants of WBP, using the data and computer analysis available on Robinson's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue on CD-ROM". Corroborates Manly and Rickert's A, B, C, and D groupings and their affiliations, suggests two more (E, F) that…

Although the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts were both copied by "Scribe B," their differences indicate how a variety of factors affect textual transmission.

The metrical and stylistic habits reflected in the variants of WBP manuscripts Hengwrt, Ellesmere, Gg, Ha4, CP, and Dd indicate scribal rather than authorial origins. In comparison with Hengwrt, Ellesmere does not reflect a consistent effort to…

Describes how the marginal note "Stokes" in the Hengwrt manuscript of CT may have been erased in a conservation project in 1956, arguing that attention must be given to facsimiles and descriptions as well as to manuscripts. Explores the implications…

Manuscript environment (in the case of Huntington 140, the copying of ClT alongside several pious poems by Lydgate and circulation with a paraphrase of Job, the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye," and several edifying narratives), combined with the…

An advance first chapter of a proposed revision of Bryan and Dempster's 'Sources and Analogues' (1941), in process under the editorship of Robert Correale and Mary Hamel. Cooper evaluates the relation of CT to other medieval storytelling…

By inserting elements of Chaucerian narrative and language and making direct references to Chaucer and TC, Lydgate replaces the Latin model of literary accomplishment with a vernacular model, thus translating Chaucer's English writing into the high…

Surveys the reception of Chaucer reflected in translations by Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Pope, and Wordsworth, viewing it as the beginning of modern criticism, of the modern idea of a national literature, of modern textual criticism, and of modern…

Although Hoccleve's poetry is in many ways "at a further remove than Chaucer from French formal models," some features of his verse suggest a "closer affinity," especially the holograph manuscripts that can be seen as single-author "collected poems."

The translator of "The Boke of Coumfort" borrowed from Chaucer's Bo when translating Boethius, Christianizing and expanding both.

One of the ways that Skelton sought to achieve a status as high as Chaucer's was to present himself as a combination of poet, priest, and prophet in "Replycacion."

Examines how Stephen Hawes's "Conforte de Louers" and "Pastime of Pleasure," in selected allusions and references to TC, conflate the poet's identity and the act of reading. Reactions to the Hawesean poems in Humphrey emanuscript collection suggest…

The 'Kingis Quair' is distinct from the "Chaucerian tradition" insofar as the former deals with public issues as well as personal ones. Its presentation of Boethian philosophy contrasts with that in TC and KnT, from which it "self-consciously…

Summarizes Usk's life and career. While assessing the fusion of various levels of meaning in "The Testament of Love," Medcalf observes what Usk borrows from Chaucer (HF and TC) and Langland, as well as from Boethius and Anselm.

Attempts to define fifteenth-century "Chaucerian poetry," commenting on the historical use of the term and positing several thematic and formal features, especially the "meta-fictive and self-reflexive virtuosity" that results from various kinds of…

Philip Larkin's undergraduate essays and notes, preserved among Bruce Montgomery's papers at the Bodleian Library, record his reactions to Chaucer (generally positive) and Langland (negative).

Reads Lydgate's "Destruction" as a Canterbury tale and a "pre-text" to KnT. Set historically before KnT, Lydgate's poem expands the boundaries of Chaucer's poem but "forecloses" its "limited possibilities for constructive human activity."

Geoffrey Chaucer, traditionally thought to be an early resident of Woodstock, and John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, are united by geography. Together they represent English glory and are thus commemorated in minor verse of the eighteenth…

Examines Henryson's treatment of Chaucer's story of Criseyde, focusing on Henryson's innovation and concern with artistic creativity, evident in his punishment of Cresseid with leprosy.

Examines diachronically the values of "e" in weakly stressed syllables, revealing the extent, causes, and consequences of phonetic and morphosyntactic changes: loss of syllables and inflectional endings, efforts to make spelling consistent, and…