Browse Items (16472 total)

Contemplates the word "lemman" in Malyne's dawn song of RvT: its connotations elsewhere in Chaucer's corpus indicate that it names her experience the night before as sexual assault.

Inscribed in Durham Palace Green Library, Bamburgh Select. 8, a copy of the "c. 1550 Thynne edition of Chaucer's Workes," this epitaph stands apart from the three Latin texts heretofore known. One of its signatories may be identified as the "Edmund…

Argues that the forest described in BD, 416-26, is "both topographical and ekphrastic," comparing details of the forest with aspects of Wenceslas Hollar's engravings of the nave of Old St. Paul's Cathedral, reproduced in William Dugdale's history of…

Responds to Ad Putter, "Linguistic Change and Metre: The Demise of Adjectival Inflections and the Scansion of 'High' and 'Sly' in Chaucer, Gower and Hoccleve" (2022). Claims that the dropping of inflectional "-e" in "high" and "sly" in poetry by…

Argues for the adoption of "thy selven" instead of "they shynen" (line 1015) as the "lectio difficilior: and as the reading supported by Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 16, the copy-text for most editions of HF.

Although N. F. Blake (N&Q 224:110-11 and Thomas W. Ross N&Q 226:202) assert that the Miller's use of "astromye" reflects his literacy, it seems likely that the form existed as a plausible variant. The B text of "Piers Plowman" also contains sixteen…

Provides evidence that much of John Kennedy Toole's knowledge of Boethius, important to his novel "A Confederacy of Dunces," came through the Chaucer class that he took from Robert Lumiansky.

Examines details and reads tonal shifts in the GP description of the Knight (in comparison with the Monk) and in KnT, considering them as evidence of Chaucer's gentle, humorous depiction of chivalry. Neither sharply satiric nor wholly idealistic, KnT…

Traces the "stylistic and ironic aspects of 'honde'" in WBP, showing how uses of the word and related imagery anticipate the Wife's mastery of Jankyn.

Theorizes "recursivity"--an alternative to "originality"--as a trope in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English literary history, arguing that much often considered to be "original" or "revolutionary" in modernity is better understood as remaking…

Reprints two poems about Chaucer (by e. e. cummings and Henry Wordsworth Longfellow) and fifteen twentieth-century essays or excerpts on CT by various authors, plus one previously unpublished essay: Paul E. Beichner's "Characterization in the…

An anthology of seventeen twentieth-century essays or excerpts by various authors on TC (twelve examples), BD, HF, PF, courtly love, and dream vision poetry--sixteen reprinted and one original: R. E. Kaske, "The Aube in Chaucer's 'Troilus'."

Chaucer's preeminence over Langland is an effect of historical and social forces and must be revised, because tradition is a conflicted notion that helps construct understanding of past, present, and future. Chaucer was a medium of this process, "the…

Surveys the relationships between theology and poetry in late-medieval writing, assessing how Robert Grosseteste, the Pearl poet, and Chaucer communicate a proto-humanistic perspective, "characterized by a semi-Pelagian, anthropocentric theology"…

More than 3,200 annotated entries, compiled and edited from the annual bibliographies published in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, newly arranged and cross-listed in topical categories. Includes author and subject indexes.

Assesses Chaucer's adaptations of his sources and his influences on later tradition, examining his uses of Dante in TC (Paolo and Francesca, idea of gentility, and Paradiso 33) and tracing the transformations of the characters of KnT (particularly…

Twenty essays by various authors and a bibliography of Hanning's publications. The essays are divided into three sections: history and romance, Chaucer's works, and Italian contexts. For nine essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Reading…

Explores the political discourse of fifteenth-century England, identifying a "pre-Machiavellian moment" in which awareness of political upheaval and the unreliability of Fortune influenced or produced a variety of vernacular texts. Assesses the…

Describes how Chaucer's "mirth reveals his moral premises" and conveys joy throughout his poetic corpus, explaining how the early dream poems, in varying degrees, communicate the progress of the comic narrators toward greater moral and philosophic…

Characterizes late fourteenth-century England as an age of "crisis" and pursues a "style-and-culture" assessment of the poetry of the "Pearl"-poet, William Langland, and Chaucer, summarizing what is known (and not known) of each writer and reading…

Sixteen essays by various authors. For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives under Alternative title.

Assesses the biblical and theatrical allusions in MilT for the ways that they engage the theme of interpretation, challenge gender categories, and dovetail with contemporary concerns about the dangers of drama and reading. Compares these with similar…

Ten essays by various authors and an introduction by the editor, exploring the relationship of Caxton to early Continental printing and the influence of Caxton and his practice on English printing, ideas of authorship, editing, and language. Includes…

An introduction by the editors and eleven essays by various authors seek to vitalize Lydgate studies, exploring the status of poet laureate, Lydgate's poetic style, his political poetry, and a number of literary poems and forms (e.g., mumming,…

Studies the cultural, literary, and codicological contexts for English late medieval works of revealed writing - apocalyptic, visionary, mystical, prophetic, etc. - considering the reception of Continental works in England and works composed in…