Browse Items (16472 total)

Studies the development of mercantile practice in the late Middle Ages and depictions of merchants in English literature, from early satires to greater acceptability. Includes sections on merchants in Langland's "Piers Plowman," Gower's "Mirour de…

Studies the depiction and reception of historical and literary outlaws in England from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, focusing on how borders of various sorts--legal, ethnic, political, social, and religious--define the outlaw identity. Jones…

Gertz reads HF in light of modern semiotic theory (Maria Corti, Umberto Eco, and Roman Jakobson) and medieval traditions of "fürstenspiegel" (mirror of princes), with particular attention to visual signs and codes. Contrasts Chaucer's techniques of…

This collection dedicated to André Crépin contains an introduction and eleven essays on different aspects of palimpsests, both in the technical and literary senses of the word. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Palimpsests and…

Anthology of documents pertaining to English literature from 1350-1500. Introduction details historical, social, and political movements of late Middle Ages. Includes annotations, timeline, and chronological listing of major medieval literary works.

Building on recent studies related to space and epistemology, this study argues that Chaucer, as well as the "Pearl"-poet and author of "The Cloud of Unknowing," take a pedagogical stance in their writing and "proffer a space from which or by means…

Discusses fairies and elves within medieval romances and folklore. Analyzes Chaucer's use of "fayrye" in the MerT, "fairy mistresses" in Th, and the "fairy woman" in the WBT.

Studies the tradition in which God speaks through humans and the proto-reformation implications of literary texts where the laity use speech usually reserved for priests. Chapter 4, "Cursed Speakers," considers the carter's and old woman's curses in…

Historical analysis of early women's speech; describes early modern England's regulations of women's speech and women's subversive strategies to represent themselves as subjects in masculine discourses (including court depositions). Examines speech…

Provides postcolonial reading of history of Jewish communities and anti-Semitic discourses in medieval England. Chapter 5, "Text and Context: Tracing Chaucer's moments of Jewishness," discusses Jews in CT, focusing on Th, and PrT.

For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Anglo-Scottish Border and the Shaping of Identity under Alternative Title.

Eighteen essays comprise an "'Un'festschrift" that celebrates Terry Jones as a comedian, cinematographer, historian, and Chaucerian. For five contributions that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval Python under Alternative Title.

HF, TC, and CT more commonly represent shame (an exterior phenomenon) than guilt (an interior one); in dialogue with late medieval penitential theology, they suggest the narrative invisibility of guilt. HF and TC tackle the plausibility, in pagan…

Details the patience genre in medieval literature. Chapter 5 focuses on Chaucer's female patience figures, including Griselda in ClT and female characters in LGW, and compares how Christine de Pizan and Chaucer treat the patience literature genre…

Sixteen essays by various authors examine animals in Chaucer, with an Introduction and Afterword that describe the grounds for challenging the "anthropocentric perspective" and align this challenge with feminism and the rejection of hierarchical…

Analyzes how Chaucer's rhetorical constructions decenter self-disclosure and resist simplistic notions of gender in WBPT, ClT, FranT, and PhyT. Figurative or allusive speech cannot adequately represent subjectivity and desire. Chaucer's treatments of…

Collection of essays exploring how medievalisms and medieval elements are reclaimed and reconceptualized in contemporary print and digital texts, TV, and film. For an essay pertaining to Chaucer, search for Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture…

Examines production and reception of food in canonical literary works, including writings by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, and George Eliot. Chapter 3, "Chaucer's Pilgrims and a Medieval Game of Food," focuses on how issues of "food security and…

Considers Chaucer's fascination with contemporary theories of change, both in readily visible physical form and also less visible self-reform. The book is divided into three sections: Physics, Alchemy, and Logic. The Physics section discusses HF as a…

Explores the influence of Anne of Bohemia, wife and consort of King Richard II, on Chaucer and his contemporaries. Proposes that Anne of Bohemia was a "possible female patron and reader" of Chaucer's texts. Focuses on PrT, SNT, KnT, WBT, and LGW.

Studies "the architecture of Chaucerian metapoetics" in CT and reads several tales as Neoplatonic texts. Criticism of MilT, ManT, and NPT is framed by a consideration of the corrupted natural philosophy of the old man in PardT. Nicholas's impalement…

Explores how Abelard, Chaucer, and Langland used consolatory narratives in their writings. Chapter 5 (pp. 107-27) explores Augustinian and Boethian concerns in KnT.

Collects interdisciplinary essays focusing on the breadth and depth of games in medieval literature and culture. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for Games and Gaming in Medieval Literature under Alternative Title.

Explores the political motivations of Ovid's "frame narratives" and how they appealed to and influenced medieval writers. For a chapter on Chaucer see Chapter 4, "Clerical Expansion and Narrative Diminution in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales."

Investigates the "discourses of [rape] survival" in medieval literature and its historical contexts, addressing the aftereffects of rape as they are depicted in saints' lives, anchoritic literature, accounts of raped wives (particularly Lucretia in…