Browse Items (16364 total)

Distinguishes between two kinds of manuscripts of CT: those in which the entire poem is the sole item or the dominant one and those in which individual tales appear in anthologies. Focuses on the second kind, observing the moral or courtly nature of…

Describes the structure of the so-called marriage group, focusing on how the pairings of FrT and SumT and MerT and SqT contribute to the sense of dramatic climax fulfilled in FranT.

Explains how TC "creates its own audience" through the narrator's addresses to readers/listeners that help to involve them as putative lovers, as judges of the characters, and, most importantly, as participants in the making of historical fiction and…

Explains why both Richard II and Henry IV antedated their grants to Chaucer to October 13 (1398 and 1399, respectively): Richard because it was the feast day of the translation of St. Edward the Confessor, whom he venerated; Henry, because he had…

Interprets various details in WBP and in the GP description of the Wife of Bath to determine whether she is a five-time widow or still wedded to Jankyn, finding the evidence to be inconclusive, perhaps richly ambiguous.

Gauges Chaucer's familiarity with the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes, commenting on the English poet's use of "vavasour" to describe the Franklin and on his allusions to Lancelot, Arthur, and Gawain. Suggests the possibility that…

Examines various passages of praise of Troilus in TC, comparing them with a fifteenth-century Middle English theological poem, "The Sixtene Poyntes of Charite," observing that Chaucer's hero, while not Christian, exemplifies the Pauline ideals of the…

Accepts that variants in manuscripts of TC provide evidence of Chaucer's revisions and studies a number of small changes that affect meter, style, and emphasis; cancellations or moving of stanzas have broader implications for Chaucer's…

Resolves the apparent inconsistencies of astronomical dates in GP and MLP by explaining that Chaucer knew of and calculated by means of the "precession of the equinoxes," as is evident in FranT.

Summarizes the plot of the sixteenth-century Polish romance, "Historia o Cesar zu Otone," observing how a number of its motifs are paralleled in vernacular analogues, including MLT.

Summarizes the plot of a modern analogue to RvT, David Madden's story called "Night Shift," published in "Playboy" magazine in 1971.

Describes English analogues and the Latin original to Chaucer's lost translation, "Origenes upon the Maudelyne" (LGWP-F 428), hypothesizing that Chaucr translated his work upon the request of a lady and speculating why he may have done so.

Identifies elements of MilT that burlesque the Annunciation, the Incarnation, and the Flood, explaining imagery and allusions derived from the biblical narratives and mystery plays.

Comments on charms in TC, ParsT, and MilT as an introduction to a general survey of medieval charms and the need to study them more extensively, especially those in medical manuscripts.

Chaucer made at least two authenticated journeys to Italy whereby he gained a knowledge of the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Curiously, though he borrowed extensive narrative material from Boccaccio, Chaucer never mentions him by name as…

Reviews Keats's "regular contact" with Chaucer's works and assesses TC as a "largely overlooked intertext" for "The Eve of St. Agnes" that illuminates "the creative tensions of St. Agnes and Keats's habits in reading medieval texts." Focuses on…

Analyzes manifestations of the Wife of Bath throughout 1660-1810, in seven chapters on primarily verbal art and seven on primarily visual art. Melds methodologies from the disciplines of literature, art history, musicology, education, folklore, print…

Proposes a "taxonomy" of medieval romance, which is epitomized by "chivalric romance," but ranges widely in mode, tone, and motif from "proto-romance" to "counter-romance." Characterizes various forms and sub-forms and includes tabular anatomies of…

Describes and analyzes the versification of "The Tale of Gamelyn," arguing that its "prosodic system . . . falls somewhere between" those of Chaucer and of "Piers Plowman."

Attends to histories of reinterpretation and translation of medieval poetry of Chaucer and of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Focuses on the return to medievalism
by British poets of the twenty-first century, including Seamus Heaney. Also notes…

Briefly invokes Chaucer, noting Pasolini's 1971 film, "The Canterbury Tales," and its adaptation of Chaucer's work to highlight increasing cultural degradation as works are transmitted.

Examines Chaucer's impact on medievalisms of early and later Romantic English poets. Portrays Chaucer's influence on Wordsworth, not only in deliberately medievalist work, but throughout his corpus, focusing on daisies and their presentations in text…

Uses Chaucer and the "Pearl"-poet as metonyms for the tasks of translating and updating medieval works for later readers. Evokes both works in these translations, if at times obliquely.

Explores political and ideological similarities between PhyT and Livy's version of the story, and traces these similarities in later English and German versions, especially the Tudor interlude "Apius and Virginia" and G. E. Lessing's bourgeois…

Impressionistic commentary on the levels of narration in MilT, its self-conscious concern with auditory and visual perspective, its mockery of the Bible, and the process of its humor. The reader's point of view is that of a panopticon that turns out…