Browse Items (16471 total)

Describes a pedagogy for teaching ClT in comparison to the Griselda story in Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies--as part of a course that treats "Chaucer in context" as a means to encourage students to engage actively in their…

Summary information about the lives and works of English authors; includes Chaucer's biography and introductory presentation of CT.

The twin rubrics of succession and invention guide Statius's response to Virgil and, in turn, Boccaccio's response to Statius, Chaucer's responses to Boccaccio, and Lydgate's response to Chaucer. By exploiting the silences of their predecessors, the…

Herold reads WBT as an "individuation myth" in which the knight gains "wisdom and self-empowerment" in his encounters with the anima, manifested in the "triple-aspect of the Great Mother Archetype": maiden, queen, and loathly lady.

Feminist narratological analysis of WBPT reveals that the Wife's arguments, based in traditional misogyny, overwhelm this misogyny through dynamic engagement of it.

Explores how the character Theseus in KnT does and does not embody principles of political philosophy found in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy." Combining "idealism and political exigency," Theseus fulfills the "composite model of an ideal"…

Considers Spurgeon's work on the history of Chaucer criticism in the context of Spurgeon's career as a teacher and her role as a leader in seeking full standing for women in the academy.

Reads Form Age as a "document of hope"; its lamentation of present ills recalls the Golden Age of the past but does so to provide a blueprint for a perfect and enduring future.

Modern notions of the "key role of materiality in allegory," as theorized by Walter Benjamin and echoed by Paul de Man, have clear precedents in patristic and medieval commentaries on allegory and supposition, although the sense of "material" is more…

Focuses on the occupatio that addresses Emelye's ritual ablutions in the temple of Diana. Discusses the way Chaucer identifies different modes of seeing--all-inclusive panoramic vision vs. the privileged view of the voyeur--with the Knight's staging…

A computer-assisted comparison of editions of BD, HF, and PF. Clarifies spellings, lexis, syntax, and metrics, analyzing versions by Benson, Robinson, Root, Brewer, and Havely.

A computer-assisted comparison of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts of GP. Clarifies differences and similarities in spellings, lexis, syntax, and metrics in the two manuscripts.

Assesses the debate between psychoanalytic and historicist critics, arguing that psychoanalytic assumptions and interpretations are embedded in historicist analysis, despite historicist claims of rejecting psychoanalysis. Considers works by major…

Criticism of warfare at the end of the fourteenth century focused on greed and pride as "evils of the times," rather than on burdens of taxation, an earlier preoccupation. In Sted, Form Age, Mel, and Th, Chaucer's dislike of war is evident, and his…

Suggests that Daun John and aspects of ShT may have been inspired by a popular legend (perhaps oral) of Don Juan.

In mood and details, Form Age and For enable us to see Chaucer's pessimistic attitudes toward "Boethian concerns." Truth, Gent, and Sted also emphasize the wretchedness of the present world rather than recognition of divine order and the consolation…

The Jungian notion of synchronicity--the significant coincidence of psychological and physical states--helps one understand medieval notions of astrology, mysticism, and the supernatural. Wolfe comments on the meeting of Palamon and Arcite in KnT,…

Argues that a seventeenth-century play, "The Wisest Have Their Fools About Them," may reflect the influence of Chaucerian fabliau and some late-medieval stage traditions. Baldwin's analysis focuses on stereotypical characters.

Nine readings by various authors of archetypal patterns in medieval works. Topics include Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Julian of Norwich, Joan of Arc, Gottfried von Strassburg, Chrétien de Troyes, the Spanish "Shriek of the Sage Merlin,"…

Stemmler assesses representations of the Uprising of 1381 in several contexts: the "Anonimalle Chronicle," Henry Knighton's "Chronicon," Thomas Walsingham's "Historia Anglicana," Jean Froissart's "Chroniques," John Gower's "Vox Clamantis," Chaucer's…

Describes the cognitive condition of "mind blindness," often associated with autism, and argues that a literary version of the condition recurs in satire, where authors use the blind spots of characters to ironically convey unstated information. Uses…

Examines how records of the Uprising of 1381 reflect contemporary attitudes toward treason, truth, and social fragmentation. This background helps to clarify how TC undermines social idealism through its depictions of civil division and…

Not a realization of CT, Pasolini's I racconti di Canterbury is a subversive parody, providing a critical model different from many contemporary approaches.

Examines interior space in late medieval English architecture, manuscript illumination, and literature, focusing on homes, churches, and their imagery as they helped to shape feminine identity.

Summarizes medieval attitudes toward gender relations in marriage and comments on the diverse range of representations of marriage in CT.