O'Brien, Timothy D.
Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 157-67.
In KnT, Chaucer's use of the word "queynte," the dying and quickening fires in the temple, and the spurting and spewing of the flames to "suggest parturition, life's uncertainty and tenuousness and even menstruation." Emelye's tears at the sight of…
O'Brien, Timothy D.
College Literature 28.2: 178-96, 2001.
The Wife of Bath, the Prioress, and the wife in ShT represent themselves as victims of violence to make themselves attractive to men. In doing so, they draw on texts, such as medieval saints' lives and romances, that depict violence as central to the…
Explores "the ways in which the Medusa figure informs" TC and how "petrification" through astonishment is a recurrent concern in FranT. Neither poem refers directly to Medusa or a gorgon, although each capitalizes on the connotations of "astoned" and…
O'Brien, Timothy David.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42.09 (1982): 3993A.
"This study argues that, in major Middle English works, authority is the central issue involved in concepts of character and of relationships beween characters. 'Havelok the Dane,' 'King Horn,' 'Sir Orfeo,' Malory's works, and 'The Canterbury Tales'…
O'Brien examines the theme of brotherhood in TC as portrayed through the relationships of Troilus and Pandarus, Troilus and Criseyde, Diomedes and Criseyde, and the narrator and readers. The poem's ending portrays brotherly relationships as no remedy…
O'Byrne, Theresa.
English Studies 93 (2012): 150-68.
Assesses January's praise-of-marriage speech (encomium) as a "classical' thesis' as it appeared in the later Middle Ages." The speech engages the WBP through common source material and follows the topic and structuring of the thesis genre found in…
O'Callaghan, Tamara Faith.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59: 2014A, 1998.
These works use the language and motifs of love to distinguish gendered passion. In particular, the diction and imagery of love associated with Criseyde in TC show her, unlike the male characters, to be motivated more by fear and a sense of honor…
Advocates the use of student-generated creative writing in a course called "Surviving Trauma in the Middle Ages," focusing on reading ClT in tandem with Patience Agbabi's retelling of Chaucer'stale, "I Go Back to May 1967," from "Telling Tales"…
O'Connell, Brendan.
Kathy Cawsey and Jason Harris, eds. Transmission and Transformation in the Middle Ages: Texts and Contexts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 131-56.
Chaucer addresses the "late medieval attack on analogical thought through his discussion of the failure of alchemy." SNT presents analogical thinking through its clear, but bridgeable, contrasts of spirit and body, whereas CYT offers an uncertain…
O'Connell, Brendan.
Gerald Morgan, ed. Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry (New York: Peter Lang, 2012), pp. 261-78.
Traces Chaucer's and Dante's different responses to poetic "representation and authority" to Jean de Meun's "Le roman de la rose," examining the "poetics of fraud" in PardT and HF.
O'Connell, Brendan.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 134-57.
Notes that counterfeit and forged documents appear frequently in CT, but most frequently in exemplary and ethical tales such as MLT and ClT. This suggests Chaucer's lack of trust in this kind of writing and his preference for an ethics based on…
O'Connell, Brendan.
Medium Aevum 84.1 (2015): 16–39.
Unlike Constance in Trevet and Gower, Custance in MLT does not speak with her would-be rapist; further, she immediately struggles with him and receives divine aid in overcoming him. Asserts that Chaucer's treatment of this scene demonstrates…
Assesses the inclusion in the mid-1500s of "The Plowman's Tale" in Chaucer's "Workes" and its effects in reading reception and influence on beast fable throughout the sixteenth century.
O'Connell, Brendan.
Rachel Stenner, Tamsin Badcoe, and Gareth Griffith, eds. Rereading Chaucer and Spenser: Dan Geffrey with the New Poete (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019), pp. 189-211
Observes that in sixteenth-century editions of CT, ManT follows NPT, and that after c. 1550 the pair is followed by the story of the Pelican and Griffin from the apocryphal "Plowman's Tale," then the references to fables in ParsP, providing a…
Explores how the 2003 BBC adaptation of MLT and Patience Agbabi's "Telling Tales" (2004) "respond to the xenophobic and imperialist ideology of the original," challenging the relationship that MLT "posits between familial and national loyalties,"…
Historical fiction and murder mystery, involving Chaucer and his contemporaries, including John of Gaunt, Adam Scriveyn, the murdered Cecily Champagne, and others.
Item noit seen. The second of the two verse dramas included here, "De Raptu Meo," is an adaptation of a portion of O'Connor's "Chaucer's Triumph" (2007), depicting Chaucer as he is accused of raping Cecily Chaumpaigne.
Explains the exegetical tradition of associating Noah with astrological prediction of the Flood and suggests that in MilT "Hende Nicolas has built his entire scheme" to dupe John "around the astrological tradition of the Flood," thereby lending comic…
O'Connor, John J.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 55 (1956): 556-62.
Argues that the astronomical conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in TC 3.624-25 does not allude to a specific event in 1385 (by which the central book of the poem has been dated) but to a more "general tradition" of foreboding, thematically appropriate…
Modern prose adaptation of selections from CT (GP, PardT, RvT, Th, FranT, and MilT), set within the pilgrimage frame, designed for staging by students in their "lower and middle years of secondary school". The text is interspersed with various…
Reads TC allegorically, with sustained attention to astrological imagery, characterization, narrative structure, the biblical Book of Daniel, and the Augustinian theme of the transference of power.
Presents a brief biography of Chaucer and an overview of Chaucerian criticism before discussing challenges in compiling a Chaucer edition for modern readers. Includes direct commentary on TC and CT.
