A study of Middle English, specifically Chaucer's English; lexicography; and obsolete words. Includes bibliography and indexes, as well as an appendix, "Chaucer, 'The Plowman's Tale', and Henry VIII."
Slocum, Sally K.
Neuphilolgische Mitteilungen 87 (1986): 365-74.
Despite previous treatment by critics, Criseyde is a pitiable character and a "good citizen of Troy." The treatment she receives at the hands of her own relatives, the Trojans, and the Greeks justifies her unfaithfulness to Troilus.
The allusion to Thesiphone (TC 1.6) may resonate with passages in Statius and Boccaccio that connect the Fury with "discordant, perverse, sterile, potentially demonic sexuality" (p. 561). The allusion in TC links Criseyde's possible childlessness…
Caie, Graham D.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 100: 175-85, 1999.
The extensive and apparently authorial glosses that accompany MLT often underscore contradictions-spiritual against material, internal against external, ascetic against monetary-between Innocent's treatise and the narrator's perspective; these…
The Wife's "long-winded autobiography" in WBP--a "wishful, wistful self-serving fantasy" and "long, stupendous performance" that seems to "thrill to the idea" of rape--reflects her personality through its "touchiness and pugnacity," "garrulous…
Marchand, James W.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 100: 43-49, 1999.
Chaucer's punning use of "quoniam" in WBP was not the first time this word was used as a sexual euphemism. Giraldus Cambriensis, Matheolus, Juan Ruiz, and the author of the "Roman de Flamenca" used this euphemism in their writings.
Cladistics-the use of large-scale computer analysis of data, including variant readings-promises the possibility of identifying patterns of textual transmission. However, the inevitability of interpretive disagreement in selecting evidence or in…
Dividing TC into eighteen episodes highlights a series of analogous and oppositional relations centering on "ethical debt"; in addition, the poem's action can be charted through four cycles. Similar patterns, in some instances less symmetrical,…
Pakkala-Weckstrom, Mari.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 105 (2004): 153-75
Pakkala-Weckstrm analyzes the power struggles within male/female couples, examining politeness strategies and providing brief analyses of speech size, topic, control, distribution of flow, and turn-taking. Considers MilT, MerT, ShT, WBT, FranT, Mel,…
Horobin, Simon, and Daniel W. Mosser.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 106 (2005): 289-305
The authors analyze the spelling and dialect evidence of manuscripts attributed to Scribe D (including CT) and argue that the southwestern dialect features derive from exemplars rather than from the scribe's own dialect. This argument, in turn,…
Surveys a wide range of occurrences and developments for [kn], a cluster with a number of uncommon properties. Examination of the lexical and phonetic idiosyncrasies demonstrates that observed figural representation in is not at odds with a rational…
Horobin exemplifies how Chaucer used traditional methods of word formation to expand English vocabulary, creating new words and meaning by adding prefixes and suffixes, shifting grammatical function, and compounding words.
Donovan, Mortimer J.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 57 (1956): 237-46.
Explores Chaucer's association between love-longing and the song-thrush in Th 7.772-74, clarifying the significance of the bird in patristic commentary, bestiaries, and poetic tradition, and suggesting that it may indicate that Thopas's passion for…
Explores details, emphases, ironies, and double ironies in the GP description of the Manciple and in ManPT, characterizing him as "shrewd," "smug," and "indiscrete"--a "successful rascal" who aspires to "gentil" status, is "insecure," and overly…
Analyzes the placement of proper names in the verse lines of Chaucer's CT, tabulating and commenting upon the total number of incidences of names and the numbers of their initial and terminal placements in the verse lines of twelve of the tales. Then…
Jones, Claude E.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 64 (1963): 175-80.
Describes various motifs in MLT, observing that it "includes features common to the early form of the 'märchen' combined with relatively late developments," and claiming that Chaucer's "most important addition to his source," Trevet's "Cronicle," is…
Surveys uses of primary and secondary interjections (i.e., exclamations and oaths) in Anglo-Saxon through modern English, exploring how the "inventive ability is more marked in some centuries than in others." Comments on oaths based in religion (God,…
Suggests that "popular superstition" of "ill-luck" underlies the Host's reference to "fynde an hare" in Th-MelL 7.696, supported by his use of "elvyssh" at 7.703.
