Browse Items (16471 total)

Compares and contrasts John Dryden's description of Zimri in "Absalom and Achitophel" with Chaucer's description of the Pardoner in GP, emphasizing the "fine tension" between "precision and . . . universality" in the latter, and remarking on how…

Reads Dryden's version of WBT (from his "Fables") and his comments on the tale as reflections of his sensitivity to Chaucer's wit, humor, "genial irony," "gentle sarcasm," and especially his clever juxtapositions--the "imaginative setting of one…

Summarizes John Dryden's theory of translation in his "Fables Ancient and Modern," and explores the discrepancy between this theory and his practice in his translations of KnT, NPT, and WBT, all of which "violate the spirit of their originals."

Compares and contrasts examples of diction in Dryden's translations of CT to explain why Dryden did not translate the low-style fabliaux and to show that Dryden's translations of Chaucer's humorous passages evince metaphysical wit rather than the…

Includes discussion of the treatment of KnT, WBT, NPT, and "The Floure and the Leafe" in Dryden's "Fables Ancient and Modern," arguing that he adjusted his sources to suit his neo-classical audience.

Examines the role of Dryden's conversion to Roman Catholicism in his literary career, with reference to his adaptations of Chaucer, expecially his recasting of the Parson.

In the opening poem of "Fables Ancient and Modern," Dryden draws a parallel between himself and Chaucer. The "fairest Nymph" in that parallel should be identified as the Duchess of Lancaster, as proposed by Walter Scott in 1808, rather than Joan of…

Documents Dryden's wide-ranging allusiveness in his adaptation of NPT and comments on the reception of this version, arguing that "The Cock and the Fox" presents a delicate balance between praise and blame of humanity.

Dryden's alterations of Chaucer's narrative division, versification, motif and thematic emphasis, and character portrayal follow his avowed principles of translation. But his alterations in the "spirit" of Chaucer's tale violate one of his important…

The Augustans were the last English poets to possess enough confidence in their own idiom to attempt to make Chaucer their contemporary. Dryden's modernization of Chaucer was intended to achieve verisimilitude for his 17th-century audience. It…

ParsT is an examination of conscience that prepares for the act of confession that is Chaucer's Ret. Late-medieval notions of self differ from modern ones; the process of preparing for confession led the penitent to recognize and discard the sinful…

Discusses the history of silent reading and commercial manuscript production for private reading, starting with Chaucer's BD and including considerations of the Auchinleck manuscript and British Library, MS Harley 978, to suggest that meditative…

Associates the liquidity of emotions in medieval literature with the Galenic theory of humours, exploring "the different uses of liquidity to represent emotions in Chaucer's work," especially TC, where emotions such as sorrow and joy can be variously…

Argues that FranT provided the "raw material and structures of dramatic feeling" for Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," encouraging critics to adopt a more expansive view of source relations, and observing how and where the tale and the play illuminate each…

Analyzes the ways in which Chaucer uses the word "sight" in order to examine concepts of taste and tastelessness in RvT.

Deeply engaged with literary tradition and the dynamics of translation, TC resists "the patriarchal biases of the founding myth the narrator transmits to us." It "denaturalizes the masculine literary corpus" by revealing the "radical contingency of…

Considers the "authoritative weight" of dreams and visions in literature, focusing on their connections with other forms of prophetic or revelatory texts and offering a taxonomy of varieties. Includes chapters on the biblical Book of Daniel,…

In context of a larger study of dream visions, uses HF as an example of the ironic dream vision, arguing that it treats authority ironically, whereas other dream visions (e.g., Macrobius on Scipio, Julian of Norwich's mystical visions) offer other…

In Chaucer and other fourteenth-century writers, dreams often prompt the dreamers to try to assert intellectual control over their mysterious experience by classifying the possible causes or truth values of dreams. Earlier classifications of this…

Highlights prominent connections among dreams, medicine, and literature in Chaucer's poetry. Argues that dreams and medicine are integral aspects of Chaucer's works and that the poet shows how they can be experienced through literature to bring…

Considers dream visions in the works of Chaucer and his successors (Hoccleve, Lydgate, Skelton, and Spenser), arguing that these dreams break down "binary" notions, including those of body/mind, gender, and text/reader.

Compares Charles's "Fortunes Stabilnes" with James I's "Kingis Quair," focusing on their dream visions and the narrators' responses to dreams. James's poem is more distinctly Chaucerian in its political and philosophical implications, while Charles's…

Kruger investigates the ambivalent nature of dreams in light of various classical and medieval dream theories, as well as actual accounts of dreams. The "middle vision," neither divine nor satanic, figures in Langland, Nicole Oresme, and Chaucer (BD…

Hacking describes cultural assumptions about dreams in Western tradition (biblical, Cartesian, Freudian, etc.), noting especially dreams' presumed separation from "reality" and the complexities of their relationships with narrative. He briefly…

Describes medieval dream psychology, both medical and Macrobian, and summarizes the realism of dreams as narrative frame in Chaucer's dream visions (BD, HF, PF, and LGWP) and as device of characterization and dramatic irony when dreams are otherwise…