Browse Items (16470 total)

Argues against finding Boethian certainty in TC and reads Lenvoy de Chaucer at the end of ClT as a negative response to the realism of the Tale.

Assesses Criseyde's fearfulness in the context of "late-medieval accounts of the psychology and ethics of fear," arguing that Chaucer presents her not as a "culpably fickle female" but as an (equally essentialized) "attractively fearful female."

Assessing the punctuation in editions by Baugh, Donaldson, Fisher, Howard, Pollard, Robinson, Root, Skeat, and Windeatt, Nakao suggests that editorial punctuation of TC obscures another voice of Crisyede.

Explores various kinds of game or play in TC: rhetorical games, war games, courtly games, and the games of life. Suggests Troilus may be seen as homo ludens (man playing).

Preface by André Crépin. In his representation of gender in its relation to power in LGW, Chaucer departs from the conservative social and literary norms of his age while appearing to adhere to those norms. Chaucer undercuts his overt…

Examines the ironies of LGW and LGWP, observing tensions between Cupid's binary claims and the dialogical voices and approaches in the tales themselves. Mythological allusions and various plays suggest a cycle of fertility at odds with binary…

Although the narrator's intention in LGW is to praise his heroines for their "trouthe in love," his naiveté leads to an ironic representation of feminine ideals and, ultimately, an underlying antifeminism.

Differences between the F and G versions of LGWP include increased concern in the latter with aurality, with the metaphor of harvest as an epistemological figure and an "ars poetica," and with the boundaries between orality and literacy, Latin and…

Manuscript evidence shows that fifteenth-century female readers of LGW were urban and either household servants or daughters of the gentry, whereas the implied female audience of fourteenth-century manuscripts consisted of members of the nobility,…

Examines how rape narratives explore relationships between literary conventions and the erotic, especially female erotic masochism, homosocial attraction, and the nexus of desire and abject sexuality.

PF engages the same issues as does Trecento commentary on Dante's Divine Comedy, largely matters of interpretation and meaning. Part of this intertextual tradition, PF participates in and comments on the "comedic" nature of literary history, i.e.,…

Explores issues of intertextuality as they relate to textual variance in manuscript culture, summarizing the medieval versions of Alan's "De planctu." Jean de Meun's and Chaucer's depictions of Nature differ from Alan's, despite the critical impulse…

Defines oral performance art as an artistic genre, with written representations of it also manifesting distinctive generic qualities. Ugoretz examines these matters on the basis of contemporary oral performance and analyzes them in relation to five…

Late-medieval versions of CYT 8.1428-81 misread and/or misrepresent the text as an authority on alchemy, a reflection of a pervasive admiration of Chaucer as a man of science. Not until Enlightenment debunking of alchemy did scholars recognize these…

In presenting "werk," "multiplie," and "privitee" as pivotal words and concepts, CYT differs from Jonson's "The Alchemist." Yet both works demonstrate links between material transformation and the early history of capitalism.

Argues that ParsT fits its teller. Seen in relation to its sources, the Tale reflects a particular and individualized kind of spirituality--a spirituality averse to physical pleasure, critical of inappropriate taxation, and ambivalent about…

ParsT ends CT but does not bring transcendent closure to the work. In various ways--including several verb forms and other variations from Pennaforte's "Summa"--ParsPT reaffirm temporality rather than asserting eternality; they focus attention not on…

As a reckoning or quantification of sin, ParsT rationalizes the "complexities of the human will." By making human options clear, it can serve as either a beginning or an end.

Analyzes uses of "glose," "lewed," "estat," and "fre" to clarify the relation of the Parson and ParsT to Lollardy. Lollard diction is more prevalent in the GP description of the Parson and in ParsP than in ParsT, perhaps neutralizing the…

Assesses ParsT in its genre of vernacular penitential manual, demonstrating that in structure and detail it is closely affiliated with Heinrich von Langenstein's "Erchantnuzz der Sund." Similarities between these two contemporary works raise…

ParsT confronts and resolves the dual focus evident throughout CT: the intricate variety of human error and the radical simplicity of penance. Echoing GP--and recalling the theology of spiritual progress reflected in FrT, PardT, ClT, and Mel--ParsT…

Nine essays and an annotated bibliography that focus on ParsT. Includes an introduction by the editors and a comprehensive index. For individual essays, search for Closure in The Canterbury Tales under Alternative Title.

ParsT is an examination of conscience that prepares for the act of confession that is Chaucer's Ret. Late-medieval notions of self differ from modern ones; the process of preparing for confession led the penitent to recognize and discard the sinful…

Surveys scholarship pertaining to ParsT, describing the recent emphasis on interpretation rather than on philology. Identifies a "perspectivist" approach that regards ParsT as equivalent to the other Tales and a "teleological" approach that sees it…

Connects Chaucer's views in Astr with a scientific and philosophic tradition of the "Physis" that started in ancient Greece.