Browse Items (16470 total)

Surveys pilgrim protraits, ranging from Caxton's woodcuts to Blake's 1809 (1810?) engraving of "Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims," exploring "earlier readers' understandings of Chaucer's text (in order) to begin to distinguish those perceptions that…

The manuscripts and internal evidence of CT indicate that those who "put the various examplars of the tales, links, and fragments in order for Ellesmere did not have any manuscript consensus to work from, and indeed, they have helped create such…

Surveys French compilations to argue that CT "appears to burlesque the uniformly high-minded French prose compilations ... actively encouraged by the Valois princes in the second half of the fourteenth century."

Paleographic analysis of the five manuscripts or fragments attributable to the Ellesmere scribe: Ellesmere itself; the Hengwrt manuscript, except for "a few lines"; twenty-four folios of a copy of Gower's "Confessio Amantis;" a fragment of a leaf of…

Similarities between Thomas Hoccleve's portrait of Chaucer in "Regement of Princes" and the Ellesmere portrait do not confirm speculations that the artists were drawing from life.

The twenty-three portraits in the Ellesmere manuscript are not closely related to Chaucer's text. Only eight of the portraits show "striking features" described in GP, and even these eight show details not derived from the text.

Since the text of the Ellesmere manuscript is highly edited, Hengwrt is superior to it and should be used as the basis for standard editions of CT.

Ellesmere was not edited in a modern sense; i.e., it was not revised or corrected for such matters as metrical regularity. Having compared approximately 6,000 lines of Ellesmere with parallel lines in six other manuscripts nearly contemporary with…

Situates the Ellesmere manuscript in the scribal production of "literary" manuscripts in London from 1400 to 1450-1475, i.e., manuscripts of "Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Walton, Hoccleve, and Lydgate (in verse), Trevisa and Nicholas Love--and ...…

Traces the ownership of Ellesmere from (speculatively) Thomas Chaucer and the de Vere family to Henry E. Huntington.

Summarizes the development of Chaucerian studies in Japan, noting major Japanese scholars of Chaucer, the founding of the Centre for Medieval English Studies at the University of Tokyo, the inception of "Poetica: An International Journal of…

Argues for the superiority of Hengwrt over Ellesmere on metrical and dialectical grounds.

MS Bodleian Library Hatton 4, a combined hours and psalter, contains borders created by two Ellesmere limners.

Summarizes the operations and observations attendant upon restoring, photographing, and rebinding Ellesmere during preparation of the new facsimile.

Codicologically, Ellesmere was constructed by methods commonly used for fifteenth-century English books, including techniques by which "the scribe and the artists accommodated their work so precisely to the format predetermined by the size and number…

Focuses on the meaning of brotherhood in "Ipomadon," "Octavian," and Chaucer's KnT.

Blandeau examines meanings and connotations of the terms "brother," "brotherly," and "brotherhood" in CT and other medieval texts, from "Beowulf" to Malory's "Le Morte Darthur." Brotherhood ranges widely and can extend to a universal fraternity in a…

Drawing on BD, TC, and the Gawain poet, Bourgne studies the influence of architecture on poetry.

Traces two medieval constructions of Nature as goddess: the antifeminist tradition that runs from Alan de Lille through Jean de Meun to Chaucer's PF, and the relatively profeminist legacy of Heldris of Cornwall ("Roman de Silence") and Christine de…

Responds to the nine essays in this volume, exploring relations among inquisition, innovation, creativity, and imagination. Discusses LGWP as a poem that "seeks its inventiveness in law at the same time that it invites its readers to enjoy the…

Surveys distinctions between the restrictive "allegory of theologians" and the expansive "allegory of the poets," arguing that Chaucer's poetry is a radical form of the latter. Chaucer's works decenter the author and thereby pose "new kinds of…

Summary of Chaucer's life and poetic career, emphasizing his familiarity with a "world of noble and festive pageantry" and the "traditional customs" alluded to in his poetry.

Includes comments on Fletcher's sources for his "Women Pleased": WBT and "Grisel y Mirabella" by Juan de Flores.

In ClT, Griselda paradoxically is able to achieve power only by submissiveness to Walter. As in LGW, Chaucer is equivocal about the power of women.

In KnT, May symbolizes the future promise of Emelye's love. In LGW strong emphasis on women and love is tied to men's ability to judge them. May, the season most likely to obscure these judgments, is a metaphor for fulfillment of love's promise.