Browse Items (16471 total)

Offers brief backgrounds to historical novels, medievalism, and crime fiction, and surveys the subgenre of medieval crime fiction, i.e., novels "featuring crime or mystery that is solved by a 'detective' and set during the European Middle Ages."…

Reads aspects of Theseus's stadium, tournament, and funeral arrangements in KnT as "performance of power" in response to the procession of his "regional rivals": Arcite and Palamon of Thebes, Emetreus of India, and Lygurge of Thrace. George…

Common characters and incidents in PardT and three Irish versions of Aarne-Thompson folktale Type 763 may indicate cross-fertilization between folklore and medieval literature. Most arguments favor an oral source for the PardT. The episode of the…

Investigates the relations between the sketch of the Sergeant of the Law in GP and historical evidence of contemporary members of the "Order of the Coif." Surveys the nature, activities, garb, and affiliations of fourteenth-century legal sergeants,…

Explores Henryson's theory of tragedy and what is "tragic" about Cresseid, arguing for an inversion of the traditionally perceived structure of tragic action. Since Henryson anchors his poem in his audience's knowledge of TC,Cresseid's catastrophe…

Chaucer's poetry presents tensions between the authority of literature and that of traditional oral wisdom. In HF, the confused narrator cannot induce meaning; in TC, Troilus's mindset, Pandarus's and Criseyde's reliance on proverbs, and the…

Each of the three modes of authority--textual, experiential, visionary--complicated by the fictive dream-vision form, "fails to be authoritative because each demonstrates the lack of finality and absoluteness presumed to be characteristic of…

Suggests possible versions of "sorowe" for "soor" in KnT 1.1454.

Glosses "party" in "party white and rede" (KnT 1.1053) as "literally 'parti-colored,'" referring to a single kind of flower, the daisy, citing LGWF 42-43 as evidence.

The return of the ruby ring to Troilus in Henryson's "Testament" can be traced to the traditional exchange of love tokens and to Chaucer's description of Troilus's signet ring with the ruby stone.

Briefly surveys uses of Ovid in late-medieval England, and compares Chaucer's and John Gower's engagements with Ovid's works and moralized version of them. Focuses on creative uses of Ovid in Gower's "Vox Clamantis" (Book 1), in the Pyramus and…

Criseyde's niece Flexippe is named after Plexippus in Ovid's story of Meleager. The reference to Flexippe in TC 2 is clarified in TC 5 by Cassandra's relating this very story and giving it an allegorical interpretation.

The old hag's curtain lecture, which changes the knight from selfish to selfless, is made possible through the romance genre. The silence of the knight signifies "radical freedom," not the end of an "authentic personality."

The concept of piety was complex and problematic during the Middle Ages, and Chaucer's refusal to align himself with one side or the other in ClT is distressing. Griselda is neither a paradigm for lay sanctity nor an ironic or satiric character.

Though Ovid's influence on Jean de Meun and Chaucer has long been recognized as far as mythology and irony are concerned,Ovid's "neoteric" narrative techniques also provided models for the two writers; cf. Chaucer's BD, TC, and WBT.

Analyzes Boccaccio's impact on Chaucer in HF. Presents literary history of Boccaccio's "Amorosa vision" and descriptions of Chaucer's trips to Italy, and claims that "Chaucer tries out an array of Boccaccian approaches to Dantean questions and…

Reads the description of the temple of Venus in HF in light of its literary sources and late medieval church ambulation, investigating how ideas of physical, aesthetic, and spiritual motion underlie the narrator's moving gaze. Includes five b&w…

Considers the "international" aspects of Chaucer's works and Chaucer's "European nature as a writer." Emphasizes the importance of Chaucer's "ability to draw upon international vernaculars . . . and retain elements of his own culture" in his works,…

Describes (with illustrations) the "material remainders of late medieval English practices of pilgrimage," discussing them "in the context of Chaucer's and Langland's portraits of pilgrim attire," and commenting on relations between extant badges and…

Trevet's commentary on Seneca's "Hercules Furens," which Chaucer may have known, reveals that medieval theorists gave weight to the "formal cause" of tragedy. In TC, the interpolated songs, dreams, prayers, and letters may be analyzed as elements…

Examines "the creative challenges for memory in a selection of established romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, Emaré, and King Horn, including those of Chaucer and Malory, along with lesser studied, longer romances such as…

Studies how recollection is achieved through physical, cognitive, and interpretive challenges. Uses examples from Chaucer's romances to explore individual and collective memory processes, discussing memory in KnT, BD, and TC.

Considers "connections between the thinking subject and affected body in the medieval period," focusing on "heaviness" as a state of health and a condition for communication. Cites instances in Mel and TC as examples of external and internal…

Combines memoir with literary criticism to explore the importance of poetry in the examined life. Begins with discussion of TC and Chaucer's use of "kankedort."

CT develops "horror and abjection" through struggles for mastery of many kinds, leaving its characters suspended between the Tabard and Canterbury amid images of mutilation and death. Chaucer critics may also be seen as pilgrims struggling among…