Browse Items (16472 total)

Compares several theories of Middle English pronunciation, arguing that Chaucer's rhymes require pronunciation of final -e (in Korean with English abstract).

Medieval English literature often incorporates Latin in any form, from close translation to radical reduction and including wordplay and allusion.

Invokes the medieval ideal (exemplified by "Ancrene Wisse") of establishing self-identity and authority by memorizing and performing texts. The Prioress does this by "over-identifying" with the clergeon. Briefly considering the anti-Semitism of the…

Shows "how the frequent conflation between anger and revenge has shaped the representations of what we might call anger management in early English literature," from representative Old English works to Shakespeare. Two chapters focusing on Mel, ClT,…

In his first three dream visions, Chaucer employed traditional form to transcend the genre, exploring poetic authority and ironic possibilities.

Draws examples from "Beowulf" and CT to demonstrate transition in impersonal constructions in the Middle English period, especially evident in uses of the expletive "it" with an infinitive ("It happed hym to ride").

Chaucer's TC responds to antifeminsit treatment of the Criseida character, especially Boccaccio's; Henryson's version replies to Chaucer.

WBT is sometimes felt by critics to betray Chaucer's latent feminism by ending harmoniously. With its representation of the triumphant heroine and the defeated rapist, the Tale should instead be read as a subversion of traditional male discourse.

KnT reveals a providential pattern that is both Boethian and Pauline--"all things work together for the good." The gods of the Tale are pagan, but the outcome of the story shows Christian Providence.

Describes similarities and differences "between fourteenth-century and modern biography" and argues that medieval writers of verse fiction were interested in characters "as individuals." A "sense of abundant life" is generated by the ironies and…

Anthologizes a selection of poetic characterizations or descriptions of people, historical and fictional, from English poetry. Includes the GP description of the Clerk (1.285-309), in Frank Ernest Hill's 1930 translation.

Includes thirty-nine essays by various authors on a wide range of topics relating to medievalisms in Victorian culture, generally British and American, with attention to the historical development of interest in medieval languages, literature, arts,…

Documents Chaucer's knowledge of medieval accounting practice, explaining the principal-agent relation of the Reeve and his lord in GP and discussing debt in the description of the Merchant. Examines the role of accounting in ShT and demonstrates…

Codicologically, Ellesmere was constructed by methods commonly used for fifteenth-century English books, including techniques by which "the scribe and the artists accommodated their work so precisely to the format predetermined by the size and number…

Written in the early fifteenth centruy, the Corpus Christi TC,one of the sixteen manuscripts of the poem, is probably the earliest extant copy of TC. Parkes gives a paleographical description of the manuscript; Salter, an iconographical study of the…

Among the earliest of the Chaucer manuscripts, Cambridge Library Gg.4.27, once lavishly illustrated but now mutilated, is nevertheless the most nearly complete and one of the most reliable of Chaucer manuscripts.

Explores the agency of objects in medieval understanding, focusing on this concern in books of hours, Margery Kempe, the Tale of Albinus and Rosemund in Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and the stone idol in SNT.

Gift-book of historical information about Britain, arranged chronologically. The entry for Chaucer, entitled "Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1387" (p. 63), summarizes his literary career, focuses on CT, and labels him "the greatest English poet…

Shows how Paul Hamilton Hayne adapted FranT in his narrative poem "The Wife of Brittany" (1870), addressing his acknowledgement of Chaucer's influence, and his claims of originality. Focuses on modifications of the main characters, simplification of…

The tension between literacy and orality--evident throughout CT--can be seen in GP, where a literate and learned Chaucer positions himself as the mere recorder of oral performance. Th satirizes the English metrical romance, a genre deeply rooted in…

Recently computerized astrological tables permit faster and more accurate computation. Chaucer describes events that took place in 1385, but the unusual planetary configurations would undoubtedly have been predicted before that date; hence one…

Contends that the source of the allusion to Semiramis in MLT (2.359) is ancient historians and perhaps Boccaccio's "De Claris Mulieribus," not Dante's "Inferno."

Resists editorial glossing of "cherles rebelling" (KnT 1.2459) as "an allusion to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381," offering other possibilities from commentaries on Saturn's astrological influence.

Chaucer's art of characterization is an act of poetic creation rather than the mere use of rhetorical convention. By employing rhetorical devices which vivify emotion and intensify dramatic action, or which infuse suggestion of movement, Chaucer…

The word "hoom," appearing numerous times in FranT, changes according to the character with whom it is associated. This is especially true of Dorigen, whose "hoom" reflects her most moral self.