Browse Items (16471 total)

Explores interrelations among youth, old age, virginity, and chastity in PhyT and WBPT as they "reveal the links between eroticism and control over bodies." Includes an abstract in English.

Exemplifies how the interactive and "enactive" process of reading details of the frame narrative of CT (GP and links between tales) prompts cognition in ways that are analogous to the "distributed cognition" of human sensorimotor operations. Focuses…

Anderson illustrates the use of mirror metaphors, common in medieval literature and theology alike, in Chaucer's texts (e.g., SqT, KnT, Rom, For, and Wom Unc). Humanity's internal mirror should reflect the image of God, but human reason can be…

Explores how medieval romances convey stereotypes that "often appear as a feature of tales of identity in which the male subject position of active self-affirmation is partly developed in relation to female figures" of vulnerability. Includes…

Demonstrates Adam Easton's "detailed engagement" with Dante's "Monarchia" (especially Book 3) in his "Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis," and suggests that Easton and Chaucer "might well have known about each other's work." Includes comments on…

Describes a pedagogy and practice of reading PrT in light of the historical pogrom in Prague (1387), a Latin narrative of the pogrom ("Passio Judeorum Pragensium"), a Czech-and-Latin fragmentary play entitled "Ungentarius" (Ointment Seller), and…

Describes a classroom practice of encouraging students to explore emotional responses to PrT by asking them to illustrate any scene from the tale and then compare these illustrations with historical illustrations, from the Vernon manuscript to modern…

Describes the incorporation of works by the English Jewish poet Meir b. Elijah of Norwich into a survey of early English literature, exploring difficulties and achievements. Includes brief comparison of Meir's use of personal acrostics in his poetry…

Applies Freudian-based neighboring theory to PrT, comparing it with several medieval exempla about Jews, and explaining how such comparisons can help students to see the necessity of interpretation in determining affection and prejudice, crime and…

Caie describes features of manuscript ordinatio, material, glossing, etc. to show how late medieval English vernacular manuscripts (especially those of Chaucer and Gower) lay claim to authority even while their authors assert that they are only…

Because of oral anti-Jewish tales of blood libel, PrT, in attitude and some details, was for Chaucer's audience a familiar account. PrT and the ballad "The Jew's Daughter" (first recorded in the eighteenth century) indicate how literary and oral…

In SumT "covent" refers not only to the Friar's house, but also to witches' "coven," as indicated by various references to witchcraft or demonology--thus suggestiong that the friar is a witch.

Describes how, as protagonist of NPT, Chauntecleer is the "mock-hero" of Chaucer's burlesque, engaging in three "battles" and failing because of his own vanity, the target of Chaucer's satire. His "avisioun" was no vision at all, a result of…

Examines Chaucer's varied and metaphorical use of "herte" in BD. In Japanese.

Examines as ritual murder the death of the clergeon in PrT. In Japanese.

Chaucer's special contribution to the fabliau genre is the design whereby apparently disconnected, often spontaneous plot incidents are suddenly "knit up"--that is, perceived by readers as belonging to a providential master plan. Although MilT is the…

Compares several late-medieval boy-murder narratives to assess attitudes toward Jews before and after their 1290 expulsion from England. Chaucer's PrT is the "finest aesthetic treatment" of the story in the Middle Ages and, in comparison with other…

Explores references and allusions to Chaucer (SqT and KnT), Ariosto, and Boiardo in Spenser's "densely self-reflective meta-critical mediation" on national and international poetic influences in Book IV of his "Faerie Queene." Focuses on the…

Offers an analogue to the Miller's breaking doors with his head (GP 1.551) in one of John Trevisa's additions to his 1387 translation of Ranulf Higden's "Polychronicon."

Clarifies--etymologically and musicologically--that "cordes" mentioned in HF 696 refers to instrumental strings, not to musical chords. the latter being anachronistic in Chaucer's era.

Suggests on textual and etymological grounds that "verye"/"werye" in MilT 1.3485 be emended to "nerye," reading the line to mean "May the White Pater Noster save (us) from (the perils of the) night."

Suggests that "wynne" in TC 1.390 means to "complain," connecting it with rare but similar usage in Old and Middle English.

Suggests that Chaucer's description of the embodiment of human speech in HF (1068-81) was influenced by Dante's similar concern in "Paradiso" 4.37-48.

Argues that details and source material make clear that the description of Tiberce's visit to Pope Urban in SNT 8.352-53 indicates Tiburce received the sacrament of Confirmation as well as the sacrament of Baptism.

Resists editorial glossing of "cherles rebelling" (KnT 1.2459) as "an allusion to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381," offering other possibilities from commentaries on Saturn's astrological influence.