Browse Items (16470 total)

Demonstrates that John Lydgate's modifications of his sources in his "Troy Book" result in a "convincing picture of the ancient world," although Lydgate did not achieve the superior historical texture that Chaucer produced in KnT.

Describes the "basic historical method" of KnT as consistent with the "contemporary aristocratic chronicle," showing how Chaucer uses Statius's "Thebaid" to archaize the plot drawn from Boccaccio's "Teseida" and create a world "believable" for his…

Discusses SNT as Chaucer's only hagiographical work to evaluate the medieval perception of art. Contrasts the medieval devotion to earthly relics in relation to St. Cecilia's desire to shed the physical and enter the spiritual, while paralleling her…

Studies "ancient Rome as a major theme in the works of late medieval English poets": Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Lydgate, and the anonymous authors of "Stacions of Rome" and the interpolated "Metrical Mirabilia." Chapter 3, "Heroic (Women) in Chaucer's…

Rhetorically nearer to exhortation than to encomium, the didactic structure of this passage (4.1267-1392) rises in a series of contradictions that confuse doctrines and undercut ironic perceptions. None of the proposed assignments of the passage…

Descriptive survey of major developments in Chaucer criticism and scholarship, treated historically and sub-divided into eight categories: 1) canon, 2) texts, 3) language and versification, 4) biography, 5) learning, 6) sources, 7)…

Accompanies Benson's discursive "Reader's Guide to Chaucer," included in the same volume (pp. 321-51). Lists selected "critical and scholarly works" (some lightly annotated), and indicates with an asterisk works that are "especially suitable for…

Doubtful of M. L. Samuels's argument that Equat is Chaucer's work, Benson examines dominate and recessive spelling forms to argue that it is not. Compares spelling in Equat with that of various manuscripts of TC and CT.

Argues that Chaucer was the "Father of English Prudery" because (fabliaux notwithstanding) he elevated and purified the English language by inventing a language of circumlocution and courtly indirection and by substituting Latinate terms for the…

By dating HF's composition and first public reading in December, 1379, we can see the unfinished last lines as a joke purposely played on Cardinal Pileo's messenger, Nicolo,whose news that no marriage would take place between Richard II and Caterina…

Discusses bawdy words, obscenities, and euphemisms in Chaucer,exposing fallacies in overzealous scholarly search for obscene puns.

By analysis of manuscript traditions Benson argues that there were at most two early orderings of CT. All later orderings in manuscripts are scribal rearrangements or distortions of these two. Both orders, one of which is the Ellesmere order,…

Offers new support for the old theory that PF represents Anne of Bohemia as the "formel eagle" and King Richard, Charles of France, and Friedrich as her three suitors, presenting new ararguments for dating the poem in 1380 and new evidence that both…

A complete concordance to Benson's "Riverside Chaucer," excluding only titles, glosses, implicits, and explicits. Includes brief definitions of words and references to definitions in the OED and MED.

Describes the production of a computer-generated "glossarial concordance" to Chaucer in which meanings, variant spellings, and occurrences are presented; see Benson's "Glossarial Concordance." Describes the uses of such a concordance and the…

Surveys the lyric and romance traditions of England and France that most likely influenced Chaucer's early writing, commenting on how Rom, ABC, and BD reflect the possible sources and development of Chaucer's colloquial English style.

Includes thirteen essays by Benson, all but one reprinted from earlier publications. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Contradictions: From "Beowulf" to Chaucer under Alternative Title.

Though there may never have been a "doctrine" of courtly love,late-medieval literature reflects conventions that may be called courtly.

An anthology of sources and analogues of MilT, RvT, MerT, and ShT, with more limited analogous materials for SumT, ManT, and FrT, in all cases providing facing-page translations of non-English materials. Each section includes an introduction that…

Based on The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edition, providing a corrected text and set of glosses, with essentially the same apparatus, updated and adapted for beginning students.

Twenty-five essays by various authors, plus an appreciation of the teaching of Bartlett Jere Whiting, a list of his publications, and a poetic analogue to "Thomas of Erceldoune." For nine essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Learned and the…

A compilation by thirty-three Chaucerians (based on "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer," edited by F. N. Robinson [2d ed., 1957]), this new edition updates, expands, and revises its predecessor while generally preserving its sequence. Entirely rewritten…

Interlinear translation in modern English of the selections from Chaucer in the 8th edition of the "Norton Anthology of English Literature" (2006), edited by Alfred David and James Simpson. Includes GP, MilPT, MLE, WBPT, PardPT, NPT, ParsP, Ret,…

For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Wisdom of Poetry under Alternative Title.

A series of interlinked webpages that provides a variety of texts, translations, glossaries, selected essays and graphics, instructional aids, and supporting information about language, analogues, social conditions, and other backgrounds to Chaucer's…