Browse Items (16469 total)

Analyzes the function of the medievalist and medieval literary critic.

That "the major thread of coherence in medieval culture was its sustained reflection...upon language as a semiotic system--more broadly, upon the nature, the functions and the limitations of the verbal sign as a mediator of human understanding" is…

Surveys the narrative techniques of the GP as they set up and anticipate those of the entire CT: the suggestiveness of pilgrimage and frame narrative, the impressionistic variety of the pilgrims and their juxtapositions, the naïve but subjective…

Describes the narrator of the GP as "naïve but all-seeing," used variably by Chaucer to guide reader response and provoke unsettled reactions. Not wholly consistent, the narrator is a device that evokes "complex, contradictory attitudes" that seem…

Explicates numerous details of GP to demonstrate Chaucer's techniques of characterization. Includes significant attention to the Wife of Bath, the Physician, the Host, and others.

Considers three groups of ecclesiastical figures in CT, categorizing them by religious role and descriptive technique: 1) members of religious orders (Prioress, Monk, and Friar), who the narrator "damns by faint praise and irony"; 2) servants of the…

Explicates the Shipman's knife in GP, and explores how similar details unfold to characterize the Canterbury pilgrims. Details of "aggression and assertion" recur in the descriptions, as do commercial concerns.

Argues that the balanced opposition between the sacred and the secular in the opening and closing sections of the GP encourages readers to be tolerant and cautious in judgment.

Gauges how subject, author, and reader "interact with varying degrees of subtlety in the GP descriptions of the pilgrims: the "snapshot" (Yeoman), idealization (Parson), caricature (Summoner), balance between ideal and caricature (Wife of Bath), and…

Comments on several stylistic device of characterization in GP and the effects they produce: the Knight is earnest by obsolete, and spiritually ambiguous; the Parson, an exaggerated stereotype, cut off from people by lack of realistic details; the…

Interprets the interplay of literal and symbolic implications in GP, reading pilgrimage as a "metaphor for a society in the act of 'being itself'." The poem "declares its intention to deal less with what 'should be' in society than what is actually…

Sketches a range of evaluative criteria (moral, social, hedonistic, materialistic, and artistic) to explore how in literature--and in the GP in particular--"moral judgements are largely subverted by artistic judgements," in part the result of the…

Identifies three "sections" of PardT (the "pulpit-thumping," the "story-telling," and the "sales talk," arguing that their apparent disunity is resolved by the character and purpose of the Pardoner.

Reiterates that all of Chaucer's poetry was written to be read aloud, and argues that PardT in particular "cries out for dramatic reading," identifying its several features that invite performance, including its "showy" rhetoric, its "theatrical"…

Argues that PardPT challenges modern readers' "conventional notions about character and events" and "undermines some fundamental assumptions about social morality." Anonymity, loaded rhymes, and, above all, a consistent lack of decision-making and…

PardP characterizes him as "a mirror-image of all that is good," revealing his "ghastly pride" in his skills and his immorality. Ironically, PardT is a superb sermon, although its moral appears to be "quite lost on his hearers" (the pilgrim…

Explores the psychological realism of the conflict at the end of PardT between the Host, a "bully" who rejects the power of language, and the Pardoner, a "conscious artist" who has attacked the Host's "coarse masculinity." Ironically, the Host's…

Both PardP and PardT are "self-exposure" on the part of the Pardoner, although in the latter he is "unaware" of his similarity to the three rioters: "all four are spiritually dead . . . blasphemers and motivated by avarice . . . totally hardened…

Describes how the PardPT together work to convey the message that the Pardoner does more good than he intends.

Assesses the rhetorical power of PardT in light of the conventions and stylistic features of medieval sermons. The Pardoner adheres to most conventions effectively, but his "delight in his own powers of persuasion and the purpose of his preaching"…

Addresses inconsistencies in the character of the Pardoner and in the relation between the teller and his tale. Identifies the symbolic possibilities of the Old Man and tallies several ironies in the tale.

Describes the "economy and pace, characterization, style, and plot-form" of PardT, comparing it with folk-tales, and summarizes the narrative functions of the "digression" on vice (6.485-660).

Reprinted in Gayle Margherita, The Romance of Origins Language and Sexual Difference in Middle English Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 82-99.

A historical examination of female sexual autonomy and medieval physicians' social and academic roles illuminates PhyT.

Chaucer's passages about Arthurian knights, though brief, reveal the poet's understanding of the traditions of Arthurian romance.