Browse Items (16471 total)

Because violated virginity must be read as a violation of social cohesion, the so-called digressions on guardianship in PhyT are central to the theme of guarding the public good.

Assesses Troilus as a courtly lover in TC, as seen through the perspective of Augustine's Confessions.

An iconographic analysis suggesting that the illustration of Chaucer reading to the court of Richard II benefited the Lancastrian campaign to recognize "English as the national language of England" (exemplified by Chaucer as supreme "user and…

In TC, Chaucer attempts to recreate the Oriental atmosphere of Troy and its environment: the maze of walls hiding wealthy rooms and pleasant gardens, the secret corridor, the Greeks' tents, Sarpedon's entertainments, the wiles of Pandarus, and…

Critics' inability to sympathize with Troilus in TC results from their failure to recognize the "medieval practical reasoning that informs Troilus's deliberations and ultimately humanizes him." His philosophising "reflects a withdrawal from the…

The original audience of TC would have read the decision of the Trojan Parliament in light of the 1385 Durham Ordinances, clause 3. Since this clause explicitly prohibits the imprisoning of unarmed women, the parallel suggests Criseyde's status as a…

The influences of Boethius, Dante, and Petrarch ("Canzoniere") on TC are not fully evident to readers unfamiliar with these sources because Chaucer nowhere indicates what he is doing. Such secrecy renders interpretations of his text complex.

Kumamoto compares the word classes of rhyme words in Rom with those of the Old French source. There are wide differences when rhymes involve verbs and adverbs; the use of pronouns in rhymes is confined to the English text.

Kang introduces and summarizes the French poem and describes the main characteristics of Chaucer's partial translation.

Proposes a reading for PF 215-16: "and with a harde file / She couched hem." "Couched" comes from French "cocher," meaning "to cut a notch or groove," a necessary step in arrow-making.

Is PF realist or nominalist? Ultimately, the poem's debate and epistemological investigation of the two positions is more conducive to reader participation than a conclusive ending would have been.

Tallies similarities among PF, the Persian Mant̓iq al-T̓ayr, and Peter Brook's theatrical adaptation, "Conference of Birds." The author comments on titles, frame, and universality of message.

Describes Chaucer responsibilities as a justice of the peace from 1385 to 1389, particularly "the enforcement of highly controversial labor regulations," and explores how the "trope of poet as accused laborer" in LGWP suggests his concerns about such…

Chaucer's political commentary is often disguised by ambiguity--the refusal ever to mean one thing--and the multiple nuances of his words. In revising LGWP, Chaucer inserted allusions to the "dangerous talk" of his day--to texts and interpretation…

LGW examines possible heterosexual love relationships between pre-Christian Western and Oriental protagonists. Chaucer systematically deconstructs the cliché of female unfaithfulness and the racial prejudices against Oriental women; what matters…

Contrasts Chaucer's concern for the role of authors in the preservation of historical "fame" with Pope's emphasis on the enduring value of art. Di Rocco shows how Pope's personal interest in fame is tempered by humility like that of Chaucer's…

Focusing on orthography, rhyme, "near-rhyme," and meaning, Vaughan suggests that "hunting for the hurt" in BD, and not just the hart, gives prominence to the narrator's unresolved emotional and physical pain. The hert(e)/hart/heart word-play in BD is…

Five chapters, focusing on "Sir Orfeo," "The Awntyrs off Arthure," the "Second Shepherd's Play," BD, and Pearl, respectively. The study emphasizes the intertextual relationships between classical myths, on the one hand, and Celtic and Anglo-Saxon…

Suggests that Froissart's Dit dou bleu chevalier is "a poem so like" BD that it "seems certain one is modeled upon the other" (45).

Chaucer uses the conventions of Machaut in BD to undermine them, demonstrating to his English readers that the French poetic tradition was two-dimensional, "narrow in scope and appeal, read primarily for diversion and reflection."

Explores how Chaucer's prologue to Astr engaged "new models of English translation" from the 1380s, including Wycliffite translations. Traditionally, critics have focused on Chaucer's continental models of translation.

Surveys the "traditions of preaching theory that Chaucer drew on in creating his Parson and Pardoner," focusing on the preacher's paradoxical "persona," the relationship between the "person" and the "office," and the use of the physical body in the…

Although the link between ManT and ParsT has been seen as tenuous, ManT leads symbolically and actually into ParsT, and it simultaneously extends the piety of ParsT back into CT as a whole.

Examines the related topoi of the man in foul clothing and the wedding guest with no robe as they are depicted in "Cleanness," "St. Erkenwald," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Julian of Norwich's "The Showings," and CYPT, arguing that the texts confront…

Uses Form Age and Fragment 8 of CT as part of a larger exploration of medieval attitudes toward work.