Browse Items (16471 total)

Suggests that "Chauntecleer's dream . . . prophesied the col-fox's attack" in NPT 73215-18, adducing the neo-Platonic tradition that associates "the imagination with prophetic vision through dreams," and noting that Dante uses "alta fantasia" ("high…

Identifies several previously unnoticed references and allusions to Chaucer in Nathaniel Whiting's "I1 Insonio Insonadado" (1638), including two euphemisms for the sexual revenge in RvT.

Suggests that aspects of the ritual of sacramental confession are noticeable in the fabricated version of Troilus's admission of love that Pandarus reports to Criseyde in TC 2.523ff. Also notes other echoes of confession in Books 1 and 2 that…

Suggests that Pierre Bersuire's account--"or one like it"--of a hunter-devil dressed in green may account for Chaucer's similar description in FrT 3.1382ff.

Argues that the version of the Clerk's Envoy (4.1177-1212) found in the Ellesmere manuscript is the original version, modified by a scribe to compensate for an eye-skip error. Reassesses earlier arguments that the Ellesmere version is itself the…

Reconsiders possible explanations for the evident inaccuracy of the number of pilgrims given in GP 1.24 as twenty-nine. Suggests two possibilities: the Squire may have been a later addition and/or the addition of the "last five pilgrims" might have…

Identifies a previously unnoticed--and apparently spurious--attribution of a proverb to Chaucer in Edmund Southerne's "A Treatise Concerning the Right Use and Ordering of Bees" (1593).

Suggests that the Friar's name, "Huberd" (GP 1.269), "may be an ironic literary allusion, to Hubert 'l'escoufle,' the kite, a bird of prey, and a lewd cleric and confessor in the Old French poems of the 'Renart' tradition."

Suggests that a portion of Dorigen's speech in FranT (5.1541-44) has wrongly been ascribed to her by various editors, indicating why it should better be assigned to the Franklin as narrator. Also suggests that the reference to a "clerk" (Fran 5.1611)…

Considers the "pulpit rhetoric" of PardPT, the friar in SumT, and MerT, arguing that they all share general techniques, imagery, and symbols of medieval sermons, without following strictly the structural formality of "artes praedicandi." Observes…

Defends the thematic and dramatic unity of ManP and ManT, identifying similarities with other examples of such unity in the CT.

Identifies satiric elements in the description of the Guildsmen in GP--stylistic jibes and social critique, including the association of them with the Cook, who is later identifiable as the historic Roger de Ware, of ill repute.

Clarifies the appropriateness of Symkin's wife swearing by the "croys of Bromeholm" (RvT 1. 4286), adducing Roger of Wendover's "Flores Historiarum" and, possibly, the clerical status of the wife's father.

Suggests that editors consider capitalizing "nature" in GP 1.11, arguing that Chaucer personifies Nature as "virtually the patron saint of birds" in PF.

Connects the use of "In principio" in the GP description of the Friar (1.254) with WBP 3.857-81, citing evidence from a wide array of material to show that the phrase, derived from the Gospel of John, evokes a "well-known apotropaic formula"…

Suggests sources in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" for the "corounes tweyne" of TC 2.1735 (noting parallels with SNT 8.221) and for the Invocation to light in the Proem to TC 3, reinforced by several other echoes of "Filostrato."

Challenges claims that the first-person feminine pronouns of ShT 7.11-19 indicate that the tale was originally intended to be told by the Wife of Bath, reading the lines as if they were presented in a "miming male" voice, and suggesting that the tale…

Observes similarities in imagery, diction, and impact of portions of ParsT (Chaucer's interpolation in "lachesse" as a subset of Sloth) and PhyT (digression on governesses), exploring possible sources (especially St. Augustine), possible occasions of…

Identifies lines 1-4 of the "Speculum Stultorum" of Nigel de Longchamps as a source for the bird cacophony in PF 309-15, observing that Chaucer's "personal familiarity" with the "Speculum" is evident in the reference to "Daun Burnel the Asse" at NPT…

Links the use of "ferthyng" and the lisping of the Friar in GP 1.255 and 1.264 with the friar of SumT and his use of "ferthyng" (3.1967), suggesting that if that latter had a lisp like the former, his pronunciation may have inspired the "crude…

Suggests that the pun on "hooly" in RvT 1.3983-84 as "holy" and wholly" encourages us to also see further word-play in the tale: "panne" as "penny" at 1.3944 and "allye" as "alloy" at 1.3945, both related to recognizing the connotations of "bras" as…

Connects the Clerk's uses of "heigh style/stile" in ClP 4.18 and 41 rather than reading the latter as a mistranslation of Petrarch "stylo alio" as stylo alto."

Suggests that Chaucer's dismissive reference to incest in MLP 77ff. alludes not to Gower's "Confessio Amantis" but to his own hesitation in writing a version of the "well known folk tale of the Incestuous Father," hesitating "on grounds of taste to…

Comments on two 1954 publications (by John Owen and Philip Williams respectively) that pertain to Chaucer allusions, observing that both had been previously noticed and that the latter failed to identify a so-called "saying of Chaucer" as a refrain…

Charts the charactonyms of Lydgate's "Seige of Thebes" with those used in two analogues, possibly sources--the "Roman de Edipus" and the "Ystoire de Thèbes--comparing them with names and spellings used by Chaucer. When Lydgate departs from Chaucer's…