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Chaucer's meters are of mixed Romance and native origin, but the details of scansion--whether the verse is accentual or syllabic and the pronunciation of final "e"--are still in dispute.

Emphasis has shifted from the study of Chaucer as a realist and proto-novelist to the examination of his mode of presentation and his esthetics: principles of rhetoric, uses of style, and poetic theory.

Chaucer's many references to astrology have often been discussed, but only recently (as in Wood's "Chaucer and the Country of the Stars") have there been any book-length studies of the subject and of its function in his poetry.

Despite several still unresolved problems, Chaucer's life is well documented in the nearly 500 citations of the Crow and Olsen "Chaucer Life Records," based on the previous researches of Manly, Rickert, and Redstone.

References to popular Christianity pervade Chaucer's work, especially CT and the shorter poems, but these usually concern the lower clergy and routine matters. His canon does not include ponderous didactic allegory or theological treatises.

Shows that the use of verbs as rhyme words is ubiquitous in medieval (and later) poetry, and therefore not particularly Chaucerian as has been suggested. Suggests that rhyming with infinitives is especially prevalent because the form is…

Prosodic analysis of the Middle English lyric "Alysoun" that identiies several commonplace parallels with the description of Alisoun in MilT.

Surveys Chaucer's seven clerks (Nicholas and Absolon of MilT, John and Aleyn of RvT, the clerk of FranT, Jankyn of WBP, and the Clerk), describing the extent to which the characterizations accord with or echo what is known of "fourteenth-century…

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 Chaucer's…

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…