Browse Items (16472 total)

Suggests that at TC 4.312 when Troilus refers to his own eyes they "represent zeros" and thereby "Stonden for naught" in two ways.

Clarifies the Franklin's "morning dish" of a "wine-sop," suggesting dietary or medicinal implications necessary to compensate for his culinary excesses.

Explicates GP 1.673 (not 1.163, as in title), adding depth to the multiple, generally sexual innuendoes of the "stif burdoun" borne by the Summoner to accompany the Pardoner's song.

Addresses Chaucer's translation of Ovid's "portis" ("Metamorphoses" 12.45) as "porters" rather than "portals" in his House of Rumor (HF 1954).

Explores the denotative, connotative, figurative, and ironic implications of the GP description of the Wife of Bath as one who knows "muchel of wandrynge by the weye" (1.497).

Justifies accepting PF 99-105 as the more likely immediate source of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" 1.4.70-88 than Claudian's "De Sextu Consultat Honorii Augusti," Preface, 3-10, the ultimate source of both English texts.

Acknowledges the association of "lucre of vileyne" (PrT 7.491) with "turpe lucrum" (filthy lucre) found in the Vulgate 1 Timothy 3.8 and quoted in the Ellemere gloss, but specifies that the phrase, a "technical legal term" of canon law, was a matter…

Challenges the notion that a documented rental fee paid by Chaucer may be related to the date of his birth.

Suggests that the year-long delay in marriages at the end of Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost" may have been influenced by the similar delay in PF.

Suggests that Shakespeare's knot-image may be related to the five fingers of the devil commented upon in ParsT 10.852-60.

Investigates the "portentous inexplicableness" of the Old Man in PardT, and suggests he is allegorical, even though no specific meaning is clear.

Identifies three references in the correspondence and diary of Reverend Stukeley to a portrait (or portraits) of Chaucer and to a proposed edition of the poet's works.

Argues that the Cleopatra legend in LGW is the source of details in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra." Also argues that Chaucer derived information about Cleopatra's marriage to her brother(s) from Vincent of Beauvais' "Speculum Historiale," not…

Identifies several sixteenth-century statements of censorship of romances (one that mentions TC) and describes several early modern "justifications" for the "perennial itch to censor."

Describes the "ironic associations" of the summoner's oaths in FrT, particularly those that invoke St. James and St, Anne.

Offers examples from the "Roman de la Rose" and Deschamps' "Ballade" that the word "bourdan" had the meaning "phallus," showing that the sense would have been familiar to Chaucer when he used "stif burdoun" to describe the Summoner's singing with the…

Clarifies the reference to Christ catching Peter as he sailed in GP 1.696-98, focusing on the figurative meaning of "hente" and its implications regarding the Pardoner's faux relic, Peter's sail-cloth.

Offers evidence from Rom that "tidings" in HF means "tales" rather than "news."

Explains complications in defining "furlong wey" when it refers to time rather than distance, and examines Chaucer's several uses of the term to argue that it means "a short time, sometimes very short, sometimes only fairly short.

Offers information about "medieval papal denunciations of anti-semitism" and how they can be seen to indict the Prioress, especially PrT 7.684-87, particularly because "Chaucer's references to the Hebrew people," outside PrT, "are not at all…

Locates the origins of Pandarus's "proverbial expletive" about "haselwodes" (TC 3.890) in the tradition of magical divination by sticks (rhabdomancy), commenting on the "appositeness" of assigning the proverb to the "hard-headed, skeptical Pandarus."

Uses lines from FrT 3.1325ff. to help clarify the punning ambiguity of the reference to "pulling a finch" in the GP description of the Summoner.

Suggests that Branch I b of "Le Roman de Renart" provides "a partial parallel or inspiratory background" to the exchange in FrT between the summoner and the devil in disguise.

Assesses the syntax and meanings of "derring-do" or "dorynge-do" in John Lydgate's "Troy Book," which follows in the first instance Chaucer's uses of the phrase to describe Troilus in TC 5.837-40.

Remarks on "several points of resemblance" between Nicholas in MilT and the Clerk in GP, suggesting that they may be attributable to the Miller's negative view of the Clerk.