Browse Items (16472 total)

TC 1.78-82 is based on Machaut's Le jugement du roy de Behaigne and his Remede de fortune.

"The Kingis Quair" 668-89 echoes TC 3.1361-63.

Suggests that the switches to "you(r)" in the passages cited are ironic and indicate the scorn of the speaker.

Suggests that "tabbard" means "a kind of small leaden tank" for the purpose of holding ale or rainwater.

Line 3164 of NPT includes a pun, for "confusio" is also a technical term referring to the meaning of words. The joke: an apparent mistranslation is not one.

Discovers a Chaucer allusion in Nathan ben saddi's (i.e., Robert Dodsley's) The Chronicle of the Kings of England (London, 1740), which was written in pastiche style.

"Bear the bell" (TC 3.198) is best explained through a Welsh phrase in Dafydd ap Gwilym referring to falconry. Falcons wore bells, and the phrase meant "to be pre-eminent."

Records two allusions to Chaucer in two of Selden's works.

Reviews and comments on Charles Owen's "The Manuscripts of 'The Canterbury Tales'," supporting the view that there were many copies of single tales and small groups of tales in circulation.

Discusses GP 313-20 with particular reference to the meaning of "fee simple," suggesting that it implies sharp practice by the man of Law and that the portrayal of him is critical.

Discusses three different lines in the Middle Dutch "Heile van Beersele," an analogue to MilT.

The return of the ruby ring to Troilus in Henryson's "Testament" can be traced to the traditional exchange of love tokens and to Chaucer's description of Troilus's signet ring with the ruby stone.

Deterioration in the name Malkin, which came to mean "member of the lower classes, slut," can be paralleled by the Welsh "Mald."

In light of a passage in a Bibliotheque Nationale Paris manuscript, the sense of the phrase "quid iuris questio" in GP is "The question arises of what is the law (upon these facts)."

Suggests that an "ark" is a hiding place and that this provides another dimension to "pryvetee" in MilT.

Discusses a Thai analogue to ManT, similar in structure and moral.

Identifies and edits from Bodleian Library MS Add. A.267 Francis Burton's version of RvT, in quatrains, from the early seventeenth century.

Adds a possible detail to the life of Thomas Speght.

An exemplum in Oxford Bodleian Library MS Bodley 859, from "Distincciones," no. 118--attributed to John Bromyard (ca. 1350)--is the earliest analogue to PardT.

Challenges E. Talbot Donaldson's emendation of the Hengwrt reading "wight" (WBP 117); "wright" is acceptable Middle English syntax, makes good sense as it stands, and accords well with contemporary notions of God's perfect design of the sexual…

MkT is not fragmentary, although the Knight misunderstands its common fourteenth-century technique of closure. Boenig provides parallel examples from Chaucer and Machaut.

Citing examples from feudal law and practice, Silar argues that MLT 2.168 has a specific legal sense and should be translated "[Custance's] hand, in which the right to grant estates in the feudal tenure of frankalmoign."

"Chaucer's Ghoast," published in 1692, is a rendering of twelve stories from Gower; it has nothing to do with Chaucer.

Outlines the history of the defection of Calchas from Troy to the Greeks as found in Latin narratives that pre-date TC.

The word "directe" has been taken to mean "to dedicate," and critics have assumed that the poem was dedicated to Gower. But "ye loveres," Gower and Strode, are sent the poem for correction, especially in morals and philosophy. The word "directe"…