Browse Items (16471 total)

Finds Chaucer turning in MilT from classical sources and subject matter in works such as TC, LGW, and KnT, to biblical resources throughout CT. Like the Miller and Nicholas, Chaucer draws on "the cultural authority of the Bible by means of its…

Explores how writers and audiences in medieval England "approached textually constructed audiences," considering evidence from rhetorical theory, readers' comments, and "signs of adaptation undertaken by authors, correctors, and scribes."…

Attends to "evident Scotian implications" of MLT and ClT without arguing that Chaucer read or was directly influenced by the works of John Duns Scotus. Focuses on the nature of God and voluntarism in the tales, arguing that "where Custance had to…

Compares and contrasts the rapist-knight of WBT with his analogous protagonist in John Gower's "Tale of Florent," arguing that Chaucer's knight "emerges as a very clear and a very strong character"--the "kind of young fellow who can commit rape and…

Describes and edits an anonymous lyric, here titled "An epistle to his mistress for remembrance," spuriously attributed to Chaucer in Trinity College Cambridge 599 (R. 3. 19).

Challenges the critical "platitude" that love and marriage are incompatible in Chaucer. Identifies a number of instances in Chaucer's works where love and marriage clearly coincide, and argues that TC is only an "apparent exception" in this regard.…

Proposes an influence of KnT 1.1995 ("dirke ymaginning") on Vaughan's "The importunate Fortune, written to Doctor 'Powel' of Cantre," and accounts for Vaughan's confusion of Mars and Saturn.

Clarifies nuances of the title "shipman" and the seriousness of the Shipman's lack of conscience about his cargo (GP 1.396-98) in light of late-medieval English maritime law.

Offers a "third suggestion" to the discussions of what "seventhe spere" refers to in TC 5.1809, suggesting that Chaucer altered Boccaccio's eighth sphere (also a variant in TC manuscripts) and, counting inwards from the sphere of the fixed stars,…

Identifies a ballade by Eustache Deschamps (number 880: "Que diriez vous du froit mois de Janvier") as an analogue, possibly a source, of several details in MerT.

Surveys the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French tradition of short love-visions, observes similarities between PF and Oton de Grandson's "Le Songe Saint Valentin," and emphasizes that Chaucer's originality most evident in two ways: his…

Argues that the correct reading of TC 5.1809 is the eighth sphere (not seventh as in some manuscripts), and that Chaucer's "making use consciously or unconsciously of an old tradition, placed his hero for all eternity in the sphere of the fixed…

Offers historical, onomastic, and contextualizing evidence to support the argument that Philippa Paon (or "Panetto," abbreviated "Pan⸱" in the documents) married Chaucer, tracing their affiliations with English royalty, particularly Queen Philippa;…

Argues that several prominent figures in the "Troilus" frontispiece (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61) represent John of Gaunt; his second wife, Constance of Castile and Laon; his mistress, Katherine Swynford; his first wife, Blanche of…

Examines WBPT for internal contrasts, attributing them to the Wife's comic inability to see the implications of her own tale. WBT is a "tale of wonder" or "folktale" in which the rape is merely a plot device and the education of the knight…

Argues that in the GP Chaucer offers an "analysis of social rank in terms of economic behavior," consistently evident in the descriptions where a "pilgrim's characteristic behavior is defined in every case in terms of the acquisition and use of…

Treats WBT as an "expression of her personality," focusing on the "matter-of-fact" tone of the tale, its humor, and its "tolerant sexual irony." However, Chaucer undercuts "her views and reactions" ironically, particularly in the pillow lecture of…

Shows that in details and atmosphere the relation between RvT and its analogue, Jean Bodel's twelfth-century "Gombert et les Deux Clers," is a "good deal closer than has been realized." Suggests that Chaucer's source combined details of "Gombert" and…

Argues that parts 1-5 of CT represent a "wholesale revision that Chaucer was engaged in at the time of his death," while parts 6-10 "represent an earlier stage of composition." Suggests that Chaucer "introduced dramatic interplay between narrator,…

Treats various features of book 5 of TC (lack of proem, several amplifications, various sources) as "apparently gratuitous or insufficiently integrated matter," evidence that Chaucer intended to write his poem in four books but found that he needed a…

Modern psychological exploration of individual consciousness is not applicable to medieval literature which, as in "Cliges" and the "Romaunt of the Rose," assumes unity between action and intention. Hence the issue of the closing of PardT is not,…

TC is vindicated as a finished work of art, as complete in terms of the clarity and proportion that constitute its beauty. Chaucer's poetic allusion to Dante's "Paradiso" 14.28-30 is cited as an apt ending, and Morgan stresses the appropriateness of…

Despite earlier movements to standardize French, from which English borrowed heavily, the language of Chaucer's Prioress would have been nonstandard both in pronunciation and in morphology. Analysis of Anglo-Norman documents is needed to assess…

Chaucer employs the Orpheus story from Boethius in KnT and TC as an archetype of the tragedy of love. He relies on the Orpheus myth primarily as a narrative pattern, not as a philosophical fable or moral allegory.

Analyzes the treatment of sovereignty in WBT, "The Marriage of Sir Gawaine," "The Wedding of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell," John Gower's "The Tale of Florent," and an Irish story, "Echtra mac n-Echach." Also discusses the continuity between the…