Browse Items (16472 total)

Reburial is always a political act. Richard II had started having his fatihful servants buried in Westminster Abbey, and Chaucer may have become an Abbey tenant in 1399 to be buried there.

Situates the Ellesmere manuscript in the scribal production of "literary" manuscripts in London from 1400 to 1450-1475, i.e., manuscripts of "Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Walton, Hoccleve, and Lydgate (in verse), Trevisa and Nicholas Love--and ...…

Surveys the use of the vocative, "thou" and "you" forms, and other "unadorned" forms of address in Chaucer's works to argue that in FranT Arveragus adopts an authoritative tone in sending Dorigen to meet Aurelius to fulfill her promise.

Surveys recent discussions of the editing of medieval texts, calling for a consistent and sensitive concern for authorial intention, however evasive. Shows how manuscripts of CT and TC reflect Chaucer's likely revision of his works and how such…

Addresses issues of the order of CT and, following the discussion of Charles A. Owen, Jr. (1977), argues that ParsT was once intended to complete the work. However, Chaucer revised his plan when he "evolved a new and impossibly grandiose scheme for…

A documentary biography of Lydgate that prints and places in context his life-records and includes a bibliography of his major works, modern editions, and essential secondary studies. The biography includes recurrent mention of where and how…

Describes three recent schools of Chaucer criticism: "identity formation," New Historicism, and (three phases of) feminism.

Surveys English language and literature from the Anglo-Saxon invasions to Thomas Malory, briefly discussing Chaucer as a court poet and as the one who brought "England fully into the stream of contemporary French and Italian poetry," making English…

Explores the nuances of "strange" and "stranger" in Middle English, arguing that noncitizens, immigrants from the provinces, and merchants were considered strangers in London. Comments on the 1381 massacre of Flemings and Chaucer's allusion to it…

Examines the editorial implications of one metrically unambiguous feature of Chaucer's grammar. Chaucer's final -e has syllabic value when it occurs as the ending of monosyllabic adjectives with unelided weak inflexion followed by nouns with stress…

Although Chaucer's writings reflect the disposition of his time to exclude, in one way or another, those who are strangers in various communities, the poet is uninterested in England as a nation. Nonetheless, in the nineteenth century Chaucer came to…

There was no growing sense of an English nation until the time of Henry VIII, although there were momentary surges in 1290-1340 and 1410-1420, the latter focused on Chaucer. Language is crucial to nation building, and the process of "accrediting…

Pearsall considers a range of medieval visual and verbal landscapes, exploring how they signify "something other" and enable the observer of the landscape to rove freely and "compose its meaning as if afresh." The essay refers to BD, PF, LGW, the…

Assessment of Hammond's contributions to Middle English and Tudor studies, including Chaucer. Includes a bibliography of Hammond's publications.

Although much medieval English writing is verse rather than poetry, Chaucer's poetic skill is an important and distinctive part of his narrative. Pearsall examines a number of passages (KnT, MilT, RvT, WBP, and PardT) to show how poetic adornment…

Despite his expertise, Stow was not associated directly with Speght's 1598 edition. Speght "was able to ornament the edition with the names of his eminent friends," while Stow, lacking class, continued behind the scenes, providing "barrowloads of…

Reads the two title poems in the context of contemporary court activities and conventions as "attempts to present a moralized version of love within an allegorical framework."

Pearsall surveys traditional accounts of the rise of an English standard and comments on recent emphases and remaining issues. Considers the Auchinleck Manuscript as evidence of the London literary culture that precedes Chaucer.

Argues that a substantial turn away from the topic of idealized love in Chaucer's writing after 1387 demonstrates a shift in his real and imagined audiences. In the second half of his career, Chaucer's audience may have been an almost exclusively…

Examines attempts to associate Chaucer's works with qualities (assumed or inferred) that constitute "Englishness" and argues that such associations were products of nineteenth- and twentieth-century xenophobia (usually anti-French). Chaucer's works…

Distinguishes between the modern "expressive" function of book illustration and various medieval practices. Modern practice is evident in W. Russell Flint's 1928 illustrations to CT, while the Ellesmere illustrations evince efforts to "restore social…

Describes the importance of Thomas Speght in the tradition of Chaucerian scholarship. Relying in part on John Stow's research, Speght produced a hurried edition in 1598, and partially influenced by Francis Thynne's recommendations, carefully revised…

Surveys the "history of Gower's reputation," beginning with Chaucer's reference to him as "moral Gower" at the end of TC and his possible allusions to Gower's works in ManT and MLP. The idea of a "quarrel" between the two poets is perhaps…

Argues that the autobiographical portion of Hoccleve's "Regement of Princes" and its "praise and portrait" of Chaucer indicate that the poem is part of a broader "program of kingly self-representation" undertaken by Henry, Prince of Wales, who…

Argues that manuscripts ignored by editors "often deserve far more than the total neglect" they receive, drawing examples from manuscripts of Chaucer and Langland, including a number of cruces from manuscripts of Chaucer's CT and TC. Comments on…