Browse Items (16472 total)

Quinn defines the genre of dream vision, surveys "standard readings" of BD, and offers a "re-vision" of the poem that reconciles its humor and sadness by imagining it as a performance some years after the death of Blanche. The poem may have been…

Assesses the narrator's digressions and "digression-returns" in BD, arguing that they are part of Chaucer's indications of the inexpressibility of grief.

Reads descriptions of the bedchamber in the Roman de la Rose as a source for the bedchamber scene in BD, arguing that Chaucer's "visual/verbal intertextuality" reveals his preference for civilization over primitivism.

Explores the concept of "civil inattention" ("a desire not to intrude on privacy") as it helps to explain the behavior of the dreamer toward the Black Knight in BD. The concept is described in modern sociology and occurs in several medieval romances…

Critics generally gloss "embosen" as either "concealed in the woods" or "exhausted from the hunt." Examination of the word determines its precise meaning as a hunting term and also sheds light on Octovyen's hunt.

Anger "rises to the level of a philosophical and ethical problem for Chaucer." An understanding of the role anger plays in the formation of self and community is useful in understanding the communities Chaucer creates and examines in CT.

CT--in part a reaction to Gower's conservative conception of vernacular literature in "Confessio Amantis"--is a text encouraging interpretive autonomy.

Manuscript compilations, especially the Auchinleck MS, are structural analogues to CT. Manuscripts segmented into booklets parallel the fragments in CT in four ways: segments vary considerably in size and shape; common subjects and themes link…

Explores the relationships between power ("maistrie") and gender in CT as these relationships are reflected in conversation and the dialogue of spouses and lovers in seven Tales: MilT, WBT, ClT, MerT, FranT, ShT, and Mel. Using techniques of…

Considers citations of Paul's epistles to Timothy in WBPT, PardPT, and ParsPT, reading them in light of late fourteenth-century concern with preaching and pastoral care--Lollard and anti-Lollard, mendicant and antimendicant. Chaucer was concerned…

CT reflects the medieval philosophical debate over universals, posing traditional literature in tension with more fully actualised characterization.

Two intertwined debates underlie CT: 1) a tension between traditional literature and individualizing contemporary details, and 2) the realist/nominalist debate over universals.

Ganze discusses concepts and manifestations of "trouthe" in MLT, ClT, and FranT.

Mitchell examines the polyvalent meanings of ClT and reflects on the processes of moral deliberation and the polarities that possible meanings represent. The Tale invites us to think hard about the nature of moral thinking.

Considers ClT in light of historical context, particularly the events of Richard II's marriage to Isabel of France.

McClellan relates Giorgio Agamben's theory of the ambiguity of political sovereignty and his ideas on "gesture" and "shame" to Walter's sovereignty and Griselda's submission in ClT. Argues that these are key to understanding the Tale: "The paradoxes…

In an argument that medieval writers gendered undesirable aspects of pagan beliefs as feminine, Shutters examines Griselda in ClT.

Surveys recent criticism of ClT, focusing on Griselda as allegory, as "a figure of divinity," and as a flat figure. Concludes that Griselda may simply be read as a real person.

In ClT, Chaucer expands notions of female power, helping to shape an idea of womanliness, especially as manifested in submissiveness, production of heirs, and self-sacrifice. Williams analyzes the linguistic and cultural category of "womanhood" in…

Yeager reads Purse as a political poem rather than a begging poem, addressed initially to Richard. When Chaucer added the envoy, he was under duress from the court of Henry, not financial distress. The poem undermines Lancastrian legitimacy and if…

Yeager finds a partisan second level of meaning underneath the sycophantic surface of the envoy of Purse - one that challenges Henry's right to rule.

Differences in prose style, in syntactic and conceptual organization, and in levels of technical expertise between Astr and Equat indicate that Chaucer did not write the latter. Equat shows more skill in calculation, but Astr demonstrates more…

Surveys approaches to FranT and discusses it as "an exemplum on a young man's learning of gentillesse, by way of serving an apprenticeship in love." Set against actions in other Breton lays, Aurelius's behavior reflects the gentillesse that the…

Wright argues that the conditional faith and reciprocal acceptance of narrative reception are intrinsic to human communication and that FranT explores similar principles and their relations to love. The love between Dorigen and Aurelius gives way to…

Ginsberg considers Boccaccio's tale of Menedon (Filocolo 4) as a "translation" of FranT, as well as vice versa, exploring the "mode of meaning" particular to each version. Differences in ideology between trecento Italy and Chaucer's London encourage…