Browse Items (16471 total)

Explores Jean de Meun's treatment of vulgar talk in "Roman de la Rose" (lines 15,129-272) within the context of late-medieval theories of signification. In various passages of CT, Chaucer also confronts direct language and low subject in literature.…

The "Seven Sages," the "Decameron," and CT share, in addition to frame structure and historical milieux, a concern with death and avoidance of it (plague), a changing sense of time, and a new concept of authorial identity (especially Chaucer). The…

Clerical anti-mercantile views gradually shifted as a "guardedly pro-trade ideology" emerged. Such attitudes also appear in estates satire found in CT, Gower's "Miroir de l'Omme," "Piers Plowman," Margery Kempe, the York cycle plays, and various…

Discusses seven "celestial assertions" in CT and the reference to April 18 to show that Chaucer "accurately describes the celestial conditions he observed" in southeast England. Astronomical evidence indicates that the CT pilgrimage ends on April 18,…

Four chapters explore the influence of contemporary marriage law on Chaucer's imagination, and three investigate similar influences on religious and Renaissance drama. Chaucer did not merely reflect his society's concerns with marriage and its…

Chaucer's interest in craft goes far beyond mere technical process. In CT, the word and its derivations emblematize human efforts to control the world through personal expertise and learned tradition. Fields challenges notions of Chaucer's pluralism,…

A literal journey and lifelong spiritual experience, pilgrimage involves new surroundings and new levels of understanding. Dyas discusses pilgrimage in early Christian tradition and in Old and Middle English literature, including Chaucer's choice of…

Medieval ideas of psychology and cognition underlie the concern with sight, imagination, and "fantasye" in select tales of Canterbury, wherein Chaucer demonstrates that the only certainty in human relations is uncertainty. The male characters of KnT…

Surveys overt and covert links and references to Spain in CT.

Various late-medieval English texts (including the Wycliffite "Twelve Conclusions" and Roger Dymmok's "Reply" and other Wycliffite discourse) reflect "anxiety" about laypeople's inabilities to discern clerical hypocrisy. In FrT, Chaucer distinguishes…

Errors in "Cliffs Notes" and "MAX Notes" guides on the Wife of Bath lead to an unsympathetic interpretation of the character and inaccurate reading of WBT.

In light of Reason's discussion of direct language in "Roman de la Rose," the Wife of Bath's euphemisms and circumlocution characterize her as unreasonable and a misuser of language.

Proposes that "A Ghearóid déana mo dhail" (ca. 1338-56) be added to the list of analogues to WBT. It involves an interaction between a human and "fairy" being in which the human is rewarded for appropriate behavior; the outcome of the interaction…

Descriptions of the Wife of Bath in GP and in WBP are consciously ambiguous, a means of reminding us to suspend moral judgment because language is inherently ambiguous. Through glosses and textual choices, modern editions oversimplify the Wife by…

Surveys the multicultural nature of medieval British literature, which combines Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Christian influences. Introduces the myths and heroic figures of pre-Christian cultures through synopses of various narratives and…

Surveys relations between female literary characters and labyrinths from mythic accounts to Lady Mary Worth's "Pamphilia to Amphilanthus," commenting on Virgil's "Aeneid," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," Dante's "Commedia," WBPT, and the…

Examines loathly ladies in Irish myth, Chaucer (WBT), Gower ("Florent"), Dame Ragnell, Thomas of Erceldoune, and ballads, focusing on two loci--court and forest--and kinds of power. Also examines the political significance of the refiguration of…

Yeager contrasts Gower's uses of imagery in the 'Tale of Constance" with Chaucer's techniques in MLT, arguing that Gower is more minimalist, but that, like Chaucer, Gower challenges readers to discover the moral implications of the world he…

A survey of selected criticism since Kittredge demonstrates that the idea of a fallible narrative voice has dominated criticism of CT. Spearing examines MLT 2.141-96 to show the difficulty of separating narrational from nonnarrational elements and of…

Use of sources and analogues in the classroom can provide baffled students a point of entry into the complexities of MLT and allow them to appreciate the importance of redaction in medieval literature. In particular, examining Chaucer's feminization…

Through various alignments of Muslim and Christian characters and transgressions of social and gender boundaries, Chaucer "defamiliarizes" essentialist categories of race, class, gender, and especially religion in MLT. In particular, Chaucer depicts…

Dialectical and textual evidence suggests that the simile in RvT 1.3964 means "'she is as worthy as ditch-water is stinking' that is to say 'very worthy,' with no pejorative implication."

Examines the "unconscious content" of RvT through a number of Chaucer's own "identifications": with Sir Edmund de la Pole, owner of the mill at Trumpington and brother of Sir Roger de la Pole; with Symkyn and the exorbitance of his social…

Absolon's profession is reflected in his elaborate hairstyle (rather than tonsure); in his red, white, and blue clothing; and in his choice of the cultour as a tool for revenge. With cutting blade in hand, Absolon takes his "patient" by surprise,…

"In-etched" reminiscences of the Annunciation strain against the dominant sexuality of MilT, simultaneously suggesting and denying the metonymic and synecdochaic relations between divine and earthly love. Nolan cites analogous examples of…