Browse Items (16472 total)

Summary commentary on the collection of essays, with remarks on maternal grief in PrT, ClT, MLT, and other works, especially Lydgate's "A Lamentacioun of Our Lady Maria."

Interactive audio/video presentations on a series of historical and literary topics that relate to Chaucer, designed for classroom use. Includes nine presentations: "Interview with Chaucer," "Medieval London," "Chaucer Abroad: France," "Chaucer…

Describes various depictions of monks and friars in late medieval English vernacular literature, observing that, despite prevalent anti-fraternal satire, friars "retained considerable support" in this literature. Because they were cloistered, monks…

Looks at distinction between "scribal variation" and "authorial revision" in medieval texts. Includes specific discussion of CT and TC.

Reflects on the significance of Brewer's early writings on Chaucer and his importance as a "critic and literary and cultural historian." Discussion of Brewer's exploration of the "Gothic" in connection with CT.

Surveys the achievements, excellences, and limitations of English fifteenth-century "secular non-popular poetry," concentrating on works by Thomas Hoccleve, Stephen Hawes, John Skelton, and, especially, John Lydgate, along with other love allegories…

Assesses Gower's virtues and achievements as a narrative poet rather than as a moralist in "Confessio Amantis," occasionally comparing and contrasting his techniques and accounts with analogous ones by Chaucer. Considers the frame of LGW to be…

Surveys Gower's reception among fellow poets and critics, including comments on the effect of Chaucer upon Gower's reputation and the value of comparing their versions of individual stories.

Examines the lexicographical meaning of the word "experience" to gain an understanding of Chaucer's meaning and intent in WBP.

Describes Middle English metrical predecessors to "The Tale of Gamelyn" and assesses its regularities and place in the tradition of alliterative long-line verse. Also comments on its status as an example of Chaucerian apocrypha.

Combines literary biography with genre-study to assess the poetry of John Lydgate, particularly his conventionality and craftsmanship, his techniques of amplification and idealization, his commonplaces and "categories of thought," internal and…

Troilus's "double sorrow" is actually a triple sorrow caused by Criseyde's betrayal; the inability of Pandarus, his intercessor, to bring Criseyde back; and the failure of the goddess Venus to reunite him with Criseyde.

Examines the significance of William Morris' direct engagement with Chaucer's works. The illustrations and intricate frames of his Kelmscott Chaucer are complex and communicative, serving as creatively productive interruptions to the act of reading.

Distinguishes between "natural" astronomy and "judicial" astronomy, gauges astronomical knowledge in Chaucer's age, describes Chaucer's uses of astrology, and considers effeorts to date Chaucer's works by astronomical references.

Assesses the social and economic dynamics of CkT and the GP descriptions of the Cook and the guildsmen, arguing that the tale "indicts both the laterally mobile prodigal apprentice and the decadent hypocrisy" of his master "through the linked…

The centrality of politics as a "topos" in PF may be argued from three different approaches: historical, philosophical, and psychological.

The work is divided into categories for user convenience: editions are arranged chronologically and critical discussions alphabetically by author.

Examines through the eyes of modern poets the ability of medieval imagination "to bridge gaps gracefully between the poets and the world around them"--addressing "all varieties of experience, aspiration, and frustration," often through fresh and…

Chaucer's work and alliterative poetry such as "Jack Upland" and the "Plowman's Tale" "shared a common audience." John Ball's letters, like Wycliffe's writings, invoked the mythic simplicity of the early Christian church, appealing urgently to…

As an ars poetica, LGWP shows that the poet is not a creator but a mediator, balancing vision with experience. This action serves to mediate between the extremes of "cupiditas" and "caritas," tempering the former with the latter.

A reworking of the author's "Saint Paul and the 'Canterbury Tales'" (Mediaevalia 07 (1981): 91-131). Saint Paul is invoked in NPT to justify use of fables; in ParsT, to reject them. Chaucer's own attitude is the Nun's Priest's. Pauline ideas…

Comprehensive from 1900-80 and fully cross-referenced.

As a nominalist, Ockham is aware of the limitation of human perception and the weakness of language to convey ideas without distortion. In a different way, Chaucer, too, is concerned with these problems, though as a poet he tends to emphasize (not…

Biblical Pauline notions of pilgrimage recur throughout CT, evident in imagery drawn from Paul's letters, although often in "parody and travesty": old men and new men, doctrine amidst enigma, iconography of wells, vessels, widows, musical…

Gower's "Tale of Florent" was composed before its English analogues, including WBT, and is here anatomized as a series of folktale motifs. Peck also explores how the narrative is "put in a new dress" and made appropriate to its new functions by…