Browse Items (16470 total)

Identifies four medieval instances (three from Mel) of collocation of forms of "passen" and "gon" that predate the OED's two quotations for "past and gone," from 1598 and 1897.

Adduces ParsT 10.445 and "Purity" 1407-8 to argue that the paper castle in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (800-02) has moral implications of luxury and excess.

Introduces "Social and Religious Backgrounds" to Old English and to Middle English literatures in separate chapters, along with one chapter each on developments in the medieval English language, "Popular Christian Doctrine" of the era, and the…

Distinguishes between medieval and Renaissance versions of poetic "figural imitation." In the former, identified by Erich Auerbach, the "poetic image participates in two modes of reality at the same time: historical and absolute": in the latter, it…

Studies the backgrounds and characteristics of literary laments for the dead and includes a survey of Chaucer's knowledge of and uses of the topos: his reference to Geoffrey Vinsauf's lament for Richard in NPT 7.3347ff., and several brief instances…

Item not seen. WorldCat indicates that Bak's artwork illustrations of PardT were "Issued in portfolio" with "285 copies printed."

Interprets SqT and FranT as "expressions of their tellers," with the latter being an "instructive modification" of the "Squire's attitude toward life." Contrasts the uses of rhetorical devices in SqT and KnT in order to show the Squire's youthful,…

Zucker analyzes Chaucer as rhetorician, poet, and Christian poet influenced by Boethius, Macrobius, and Dante, arguing that Chaucer writes HF as a game inventing a "refuge" world,as a serious commentary on love, and as an an autobiography of the…

Study guide to the CT, with summaries of and commentaries on the GP, the links, and all of the tales. Includes brief introductions to Chaucer's life, world, language, and development as a poet, along with passages from critics. Reprinted recurrently,…

Introductory summary of Chaucer's life and social context, illustrated with numerous b&w photographs of objects from the late fourteenth century: buildings, coins, artifacts, manuscripts, etc. Draws examples of social, political, and religious life…

Describes structural devices found in the medieval "artes poeticae," for example, those in treatises by Matthew of Vendome, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, and John of Garland, illustrating them with various literary works, including works by Chaucer. Discusses…

Argues that KnT is a heightened, courtly "particularization" of a fundamental aspect of the human condition: "the disorderly promptings of carnal love and their disastrous effects." Considers the imagery of the poem (Christian, Boethian, fire, and…

Contrasts the "tone, circumstance and result" of the Ceyx and Alcyone story and the grief of the Black Knight in BD, suggesting that the contrasts in the heart/herte hunt emphasize the consolation of Chaucer's poem.

Argues that BD draws on Welsh mythology for a number of its details including the king named Octavian, the hunt motif, and the "white castle on a rich hill." King Octavian is a "composite figure" with several onomastic resonances.

Supports a reading of "complyn" (variant "coupling") at RvT 1.4171, identifying parodic echoes of the prayer from the Holy Office in the language and action of the end of the Tale. The parody "brightens" the comic irony and morality of the Tale.

Challenges arguments which assert that the MLE should be followed by ShT in the order of the CT, and argues that, in "light of both external and internal evidence," the Ellesmere order is the best order, with WBPT after MLT, and an emended version of…

Lists items of Chaucer scholarship published between 1954 and 1963, some lightly described, arranged in categories that include Chaucer's Life, individual works, manuscripts, style, various social and intellectual backgrounds, relations with other…

Contrasts the moral seriousness of MLT with the comic mode of MLP and MLE, arguing that they combine to present the Man of Law as Chaucer's "ironic portrait" of pedantic, dogmatic, or moralistic readers and critics (perhaps John Gower) who would…

Examines the allusion to Constantinus Africanus's "De Coitu" in MerT 4.1810-11, suggesting that knowledge of the treatise helps us to understand that January's consumption of aphrodisiacs is "manically compulsive" and sinful.

Explores various denotations in medieval uses of "phantom," and contends that Chaucer's use of the word in HF (line 493) capitalizes on these meanings and neatly encapsulates the poem's fundamental concern with the difficulties of seeking to…

Applies "principles" of medieval visual art (scale and perspective) to aid in understanding how BD magnifies the Black Knight's loss by presenting it in the context of the analogous accounts of the narrator's malaise and the grief of Alcyone.

Argues that the opposition between "feyned" worldly love and true heavenly love posed at the end of TC produces "dialectical" irony in which the alternatives "share equally in the truth of experience." Secrecy and deception interact with idealism…

Speculates "about the real state of Chaucer's purse in late 1399," examining details of the poem "Purse" and the relative chronology of the poet's life records to conclude that he wrote "Purse" to Henry IV because of actual financial duress.…

Traces the iconographical motif of "Maria Misericordia" as it developed from its early roots into the satire of friars found in SumP. Originally found in treatise by Caesarius of Heisterbach, the motif was adapted by Dominican and Franciscan friars…

Examines animal, costume, and color imagery in RvT to show that Chaucer adapted his source by increasing and specifying such imagery, lending moral dimension to the fabliau plot and offering an exemplary illustration of the "sins of pride, wrath and…