Browse Items (16470 total)

In two parts: 1) Elliott admires the unity and aesthetic qualities of PardT and addresses PardP as Chaucer's successful means to insert commentary on Church corruption; 2) Thomas argues that the Pardoner's effrontery and the moral failings of the…

Argues that it "seems altogether likely" that when creating his GP description of the Physician Chaucer "at least had in mind" the doctor of the Brunellus the ass episode in Nigellus Wireker's "Speculum Stultorum"; both doctors are avaricious.

Identifies and assesses various motifs in medieval literary and visual renderings of the barnyard chase of the fox, including those found in NPT. Argues that in several instances Chaucer's story may have influenced later depictions or mediated…

Comments on the vocabulary of NPT and on Chaucer's "virtuosity" in exploiting Anglo-Saxon, French, and Latinate variety to create tone and effective characterization.

Includes comments on "wanhope" and "accidia" in ParsT as examples of the "straight homiletic approach" to condemning religious despair.

Studies the uses, meanings, and nuances of the concept of magnanimity in the English Middle Ages and Renaissance, including discussion of Chaucer, who, although "he makes no full-scale attempt to portray the magnanimous man in his wholeness,"…

Treats Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" as a sequel to TC, examining how its attitude and tone differ from Chaucer's work, largely as a result of differing styles, techniques, opinions, and points of view. Henryson's style and tone are harsher, and…

Argues that in "Troilus and Cressida" Shakespeare "does not seem to have used" TC "as his main or direct source," adducing differences in theme, plot, and characterization.

Explores why Chaucer alludes to the "story of Procne and Philomena" at the awakening of Pandarus in Book 2 of TC even though he does not cite the tale when the "nightingale sings to Criseyde" later in the Book, commenting on readers' expectations and…

Introduces Chaucer's life and works, with a brief selected bibliography. Includes plot summaries and/or descriptions of BD, Rom, HF, PF, TC, LGW, each of the CT, and several lyrics.

Assesses Chaucer's uses of various kinds of similes and similetic comparisons--Homeric, epic similes; biblical "similitudes"; proverbial comparisons, Ovidian and Dantean comparisons; and more--demonstrating his variety, borrowings, and adaptations.…

Explores how the comic elements of Chaucer's narrative detachment in TC "qualify the tragedy or pathos" of the poem, and how diction, word-play, and five-book structure contribute to its tragicomic impact.

Challenges the idea that adultery in inherent to courtly love and attributes the notion to critics' failure to recognize the humor of Andrea Capellanus. Cites various examples of courtly love in medieval literature, and includes comments on Absolon…

Text of PardPT and the GP description of the Pardoner (based on Robinson's edition, 1957) with end-of-text notes and glosses. In his Introduction, Spearing summarizes the practices of medieval pardoners and preachers, assesses the character and…

Suggests that in TC 1.531-32 Troilus is referring to Tristan as a much-rhymed-about fool in love, adducing evidence of general familiarity with Tristan's foolishness in John Gower, Robert Mannyng, and PF.

Reports two oral accounts of analogues of the Old Man in the PardT--one from the southwest U.S. and one from Guatemala.

A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1963.

Includes 26 essays on Germanic, Old English, Middle English, and Renaissance literary and linguistic topics, along with a dedicatory poem, a brief Introduction, and a list of Magoun's publications between 1924 and 1964, including reviews. For two…

Identifies several medieval analogues to the sentiment expressed in ManT 311-13, the earliest being the "Carmen as Astralabium Filium," attributed to Peter Abelard.

Describes a series of recurrent concerns in Chaucer's poetry: pity (but not sentimentality), remarkable female characterizations, a complicated view of love, and the "theme of death."

Presents SqPT and the description of the Squire from the GP in Middle English (based on the Ellesmere manuscript), with bottom-of-page textual notes, end-of text notes and glossary, an Introduction (pp. vii-xxxv), and a description of Chaucer's…

Proposes punctuation for CkT 1.4394-96 that renders Perkyn's "sober-living master" as "not altogether above reproach," offering the reading as "yet another token of Chaucer's sophisticated art."

Surveys the history and development of English drama from the Renaissance to the modern period, emphasizing "the nature and effects" of plays and performance. Includes a chapter entitled "The Dream Vision from Chaucer to Shakespeare" (pp. 61-79),…

Identifies several instances of Chaucer's uses of lists of impossibilities (rhetorical "adynata" or "impossibilia") in "personal laments and exclamations of fidelity and sincerity" (TC, BD, Anel), giving classical precedents in Virgil's "Eclogues"…

Shows that the humor of applying the phrase" flower of chivalry" to Sir Thopas (Tho 7.901-2) results from Chaucer's change of a "traditionally metaphoric phrase into a literal one."