Browse Items (16472 total)

In MkP, the Host associates the Monk with a sacristan or cellarer. Norsworthy surveys historical cellarers and the role of the cellarer according to the Rule of St. Benedict, connecting bad cellarers with MkT. The Monk's narratives pertain to tyrants…

Derived from North's book, Chaucer's Universe (Oxford, 1988), this article argues that Chaucer's imagination was illuminated by astrological and astronomical knowledge of an unusually high quality.

Studies development (up to the 1500s) of seven modes of "domification"--i.e., the construction by mathematics of mundane houses used in horoscopes. Includes applications through the seventeenth century.

North reveals a cryptic extension to Chaucerian criticism: a celestial allegory. Part 1 is a guide to late-medieval understanding of the planets and their influences on humans, physiologically and morally, including chapters on the spheres, the…

Surveys Chaucer's works for evidence of his knowledge and acceptance of astronomy and astrology. Argues that he uses astrological allegory as a structural device in his poetry.

Comments generally on Chaucer's scientific knowledge, explains his use and understanding of "Aristotelian cosmology," and describes the astronomical and astrological systems that underlie the details and structures of many of his works. Assumes that…

Describes the construction and functions of the astrolabe, an instrument "used for both astronomical and terrestrial observations," and an "analogue computer" for "determining the local time." Surveys historical descriptions of the construction of…

Shows that Chaucer's references to "planetary, solar, and lunar configurations, " though usually "veiled," add complex dimensions to his plots and may help us to establish dates for several of his works; discusses Mars, TC, PF, LGW (Hypermnestra),…

North summarizes medieval arithmetic theory and practice, describes Chaucer's professional familiarity with arithmetic, and explores arithmetic allusions and structuring in BD, particularly its shape as an abacus.

Examines the "highly contrived" allegory of Hans Holbein's painting, "The Ambassadors" (1533), assessing its religious theme as conveyed through evocations of "astronomy and geometry, optics and various occult arts." Also argues that the painting…

Electronic edition of GP, designed for download and web access on mobile devices, based on the Hengwrt manuscript (fully reproduced in color), with hyperlinked transcription, translation, glosses and notes, and an audio performance by Lina Gibbings…

Compares Chaucer's Pandarus with Boccaccio's Pandaro, arguing that "that Pandarus so loves Troilus that he consummates his passion vicariously on Criseyde, telling lies which kill the affair before the lady leaves Troy." The "cues" for this…

Compares Arveragus's sending of Dorigen to her tryst with Aurelius with the analogous scene in Bocaccio's "Filocolo" and argues that in FranT the husband is concerned with public honor, a reflection of the Franklin's own outlook that Arveragus is a…

Reconstructs a career for the Knight, based on the GP description and details from KnT, MkT, and historical sources. Maintains that Chaucer had met the Knight, perhaps in France, and that the Knight was some fifteen years younger than usually…

Describes the hierarchical, mystical, Italianate view of love that emphasizes the gentle heart, epitomized in Dante, exploring its influence on Chaucer in TC, comparing and contrasting Chaucer's lovers with Paolo and Francesca as well as Dante and…

Interprets Form Age as a topical, even occasional, poem, rather than as a translation from Boethius, investigating its manuscript contexts, identifying echoes from Tibellius, Ovid, Jean de Meun, Eustace Deschamps, and Sted, and arguing that the poem…

Explores Chaucer's "reading and use" of the genre of verse epistle, drawing on evidence from LGW, the two letters in TC, Scog, and Buk. Considers the influence of Ovid's "Heroides" and Horace's "Satires" to argue that Chaucer was adept in the Ovidian…

Edits twelve of Lydgate's poems, with end-of-text notes, glossary, and other apparatus. Includes "On the Departing of Thomas Chaucer," a selection from the "Troy Book," and "The Temple of Glas," among others. The Introduction (pp. ix-xii) and the…

The fifteenth-century MS Fairfax 16, considered the finest of the Oxford Group of Chaucer manuscripts, contains BD, HF, Anel, Mars, and PF. Regarding the frontispiece, a mythological illumination for Mars, Norton-Smith advances a new theory of…

Cross accepts the textual conclusions of Pace, making incorrect assumptions in regard to the poem's connection with Richard II and to Boethius's "De consolatione." One difficulty in Sted stems from a single lexical variation in the verb "envoi."

As suggested by the manuscripts, Anel is a complete, finished poem (with the omission of an unchaucerian final stanza). It is concerned with the theme of poetry as an art functioning as a record of history. Its closest affiliations are with the…

Studies Chaucer's poetic achievement in major and minor works with recurrent attention to relative chronology, the development of Chaucer's art, sources and analogues, and treatment of genres. Focuses on BD; Ven, Pity, and Mars as complaints; HF; LGW…

Discusses the idea of "poetic feet" of versification in poetry, and examines how travel narratives are linked to poetic language. Compares CT (particularly ParsT, MkT, KnT, Tho, Mel, and TC, to Dante's "Inferno" and Mandeville's travel narrative.

Explores how "poetic form, staging logistics, and the status of performance" contribute to our understanding of how medieval thinkers imagined the "ethics and pleasures of the archive." Includes discussion of HF, MLT, MilT, and Rom.

The blacksmith is an ambiguous figure. Medieval blacksmiths often worked at night because the temperature was cooler, but ordinances forbade them to do so. Furthermore, although the medieval blacksmith was a symbol of the devil, he was also a symbol…