Browse Items (16472 total)

Outlines medieval number theory and its applications to literary composition and interpretation, describing the significances of seven and five. Then explores how and where numerological significance is evident in TC: in its five-part structure,…

Describes parallels in plot and structure between BD and Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," arguing that Chaucer depicts a partial glimpse of full consolation. Identifies how "numerological composition" underlies the structure of BD and how…

Explores the imagery, action, and word-plays of SNPT to show that they are "concerned with the interplay" between the dark, mundane world and the bright heavenly one. In their "werk," both the Second Nun and Cecilia help others to achieve "their full…

Analyzes the symbolic import of the numbers used in lines 1-12 of ParsP (29, 4, 11, and 6), considering them in light of medieval number theory, time-telling, and the astrological sign of Libra. Together, the numbers "suggest the approaching…

Compares relations between cosmology and psychology in medieval and modern understandings of poetry, emphasizing the concentric and expanding perspectives prompted by Middle English imagery and world views, exemplified in several lyrics. Includes…

Analyzes imagery of worthiness in TC and CT, compared with John Gower's "Mirour de l'omme," "Piers Plowman," and Geffroi de Charny's "Book of Chivalry." Focuses on patience, penance, pilgrimage, and the "timing for one's acts," exploring uses of…

Examines several stories from Gower's "Confessio Amantis" to investigate the poet's "thoughts about the limitations of patriarchy as an institution." Includes comparison of Gower's Tale of Constance with Chaucer's MLT, showing that the latter is more…

Collects sixteen essays from the Third International Congress of the John Gower Society and divides into three groups: Part 1, "Knowing the Self and Others"; Part 2, "The Essence of Strangers"; Part 3, "Social Ethics, Ethical Poetics." The collection…

Describes the "metaphysical associations" that numbers had in medieval imagination, and explores Chaucer's uses of number symbolism in his verse forms, the dates and astronomical calculations within his works, numbers associated with his characters,…

Suggests that FranT is an exposé of "bourgeois sentimentality," and argues that its "central theme" is the "difficulty of perceiving truth in a world of illusions." Self-deceived, the Franklin mistakes his own desires for reality. He projects a…

Backgrounds and sources for PF, HF, BD, NPT. Argues that Macrobius was less influential in later Middle Ages than Chaucer's references to him suggests.

Summarizes the development of Morris's Kelmscott Press and describes the achievement of his aesthetic ideals in the Kelmscott Chaucer.

Argues that the Wife's non-congenital deafness signifies not spiritual deafness, but damage done to her by the contents of Jankyn's book, which she, ironically, destroys. Compares Alison's interpretations of Scripture in WBP with those of Jerome in…

Witnesses' statements and other court documents concerning marriage litigation in the Northern Province (including the dioceses of York, Lincoln, Chester, and others) indicate that many lay people would have known the stipulations of canon law well…

Explores analogues to PardT, including sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish versions. Focuses on a modern Andalusian legend from Priego de Cordoba.

Tallies similarities between MLT and Adenes li Rois' "Berta aus Grans Pies," considering the latter to be a "remote ancestor" of Chaucer's tale.

Reads the narrator of TC as separate from the poet Chaucer and recognizable in two roles that exist in productive tension: an inexperienced servant of love and a fallible recorder of Trojan history.

Describes the meaning and artfulness of Walter Map's version of the "Wade" story in "De Nugis Curialium," exploring a variety of sources and analogues, including comments on Chaucer's reference to Wade in TC 3.624 and to Wade's boat in MerT 4.1424,…

Provides context for the allusion to "Wades boot" in MerT (4.1423), observing in a thirteenth-century Latin homily on humility connections between Wade and Hildebrand, both Germanic heroes, and further associations with the Irish St. Brendan.…

A revised version of the 1952 publication, with largely revamped discussions of the "Geography of English" and "The American Language," with the latter standing alone in a new section. This revised edition expands the list of works consulted, the…

Assesses the distribution of the two forms "enough" and "enow," using Chaucer's works in the database. In Chaucer, "enow" is generally a "poetic non-plural variant" useful for rhyme, while "inowe"/"ynowe" is the plural (with exceptions). …

Analyzes how May in MerT and the wife in ShT "evade the oppressions" of marriage and "subvert their subjugation through negotiating and challenging the mercantile narration." Each female protagonist "generates her own meanings and pleasure."

Explores spaces, places, and gendered power relations in MilT and RvT, arguing that Alisoun, Malyne, and Symkyn's wife all use trickery to evade spatial oppression and achieve pleasure.

Just as the themes of liberality and magnificence are treated ironically in Decameron 10, particularly in the tale of Griselda (10.10), so ClT is as "poetically and morally suspect" as are WBT and FranT. Both poets use multiple narrators and…

ManT is concerned with the method by which a story is told. Emphasis on the "gods' role in human marriage" restores the relationship between word and deed, a relationship important to the narrator of CT. Chaucer's numerous voices can be heard as…