Browse Items (16472 total)

Considers "Of Aristotle and his commentators and disciples" to be the "most worthy" of several possible meanings of "Aristotle and his philosophye" in the description of the Clerk's books in GP 1.295.

Eighteen articles by colleagues, friends, and former pupils honor Derek Brewer's retirement and serve as a tribute to his achievements in the study of medieval literature and especially of Chaucer. Responses to Chaucer and Chaucer's tradition treat…

Medieval notions of historical and literary truth derive from classical rhetorical tradition and differ from modern, empirically based notions of factuality. Basing her argument on a description of education in rhetoric, Morse demonstrates that…

Chaucer influenced Douglas in many ways: "as a model for diction and register, as a source of phrase and adapter of syntax, as an establisher of the Dream Poem...; Chaucer's "House of Fame" stands as the inspiration for Douglas's own first long…

Chaucer's audience would not have come to BD with our preconceptions (that the Man is John of Gaunt and that his song is personal). Rather, they would have experienced the gradual revelations as they are unfolded and would have concerned themselves…

Surveys the depictions of Medea in medieval literature and its backgrounds, focusing on how, in the Middle Ages, the character reflects issues of dynastic rivalry, legitimacy, and presumptions about the passions of females. Comments on how Chaucer's…

Contemplates the possible range of meanings of tragedy for Chaucer, observing how consistently he associates it with misunderstanding and how he alludes to or invokes Boethius to defer explanation or certainty. Christian notions of grace disallow…

MLT extends the concerns with wooing and governance that are developed in Part 1 of CT, especially when considered in light of the extended version of CkT found in Bodley MS 686, which is edited and appended to this essay.

CT is treated, along with the "Decameron," in part 2, chapter 4, following background analysis of "One Thousand and One Nights" in Arabic tradition and preceding consideration of Cervantes and Borges.

Includes comments on the Song of Troilus (TC 1.400-420) as a translation from Petrarch.

Popular social history, presented as a travel guide for the "historical traveler," i.e., the modern traveler in medieval England; includes sections on "Where to Stay," "What to Eat and Drink," etc. The index cites numerous references to Chaucer as a…

SqT may originally have been written for a Northern English audience, which could appreciate its echoes of Mandeville's "Travels" and "Gawain and the Green Knight."

Suggests that the influence of Mandeville's "Travels" on SqT and on alliterative poetry including "Pearl" may have been due to the circulation of the work at the Lancastrian court of John of Gaunt.

Emphasizes the way in which Chaucer's poems engage in dialogue with his audience, changing the way we can engage with "the fundamental questions of knowledge, understanding, beauty, and pleasure."

Notes that the canonizing of Chaucer can have the effect of making him less challenging, blunting the force of his concern for the all-importance of "trouthe" and compassion, issues that "every person in every age" must face.

A "critical study, incorporating Chaucer's text." Includes F. N. Robinson's text (1957) of PardPT and of GP description of Pardoner, with facing-page notes and end-of-text glossary. The introduction describes Chaucer's life and various literary,…

Reprints ten essays on Chaucer by various authors, each previously edited by Moseley for two issues of the journal Critical Survey: 29, no. 3 (2017) and 30, no. 2 (2018). The volume includes an introductory essay by Moseley and a comprehensive index.

Contends that Chaucer is "expecting, indeed exploiting, the gap between the reception of a poem when it is heard socially and its afterlife as a text," when it is a different thing. Argues "that a poem's form is itself a way of communicating ideas."

Presents the Manly and Rickert text (1940) of KnT, with facing-page notes and end-of-text glossary and glossary of rhetorical terms. The Introduction (pp. 11-69) includes commentary on Chaucer's life, various techniques and themes of KnT, and the…

Surveys the narrative techniques of the GP as they set up and anticipate those of the entire CT: the suggestiveness of pilgrimage and frame narrative, the impressionistic variety of the pilgrims and their juxtapositions, the naïve but subjective…

PardP characterizes him as "a mirror-image of all that is good," revealing his "ghastly pride" in his skills and his immorality. Ironically, PardT is a superb sermon, although its moral appears to be "quite lost on his hearers" (the pilgrim…

Includes Moser's engraving of Chaucer (p. [93]), described by Moser as "invented" (p. 124).

Analyzes a lyric with the invented title of "Inordinate Love Defined," which appears uniquely on the final leaf of a fifteenth-century manuscript, Copenhagen Thott 110, in the Royal Library. Also discusses briefly a lyric fragment of TC (1.400-406).

Applying A. J. Greimas's systems to MilT leaves Alison in the role of passive object. Claude Bremond's model discloses a more active Alison as she learns about seduction and dissimulation, which are overvalued in the world of MilT.

Examines semantic and syntactic features of infinitive clauses used as nominals in GP and NPT. Makes several diachronic observations: in this stage of the development of English, to was becoming the standard infinitive marker, although there were…