Browse Items (16364 total)

Uses Sergej Karcevskij's theory of miscommunication to clarify the amalgamation and "redoctrinations" of various versions and interpretations of the Midas story, exploring how Chaucer's version in WBT engages Ovid's original and related materials.

Explores the semantic field of "affectus"/"affeccioun" in medieval Latin grammar, Chaucer (MilT and TC), Margery Kempe, and several devotional texts, clarifying its wide "range of meanings and connotations . . . as a feeling category term," positive…

Describes known examples of late medieval travel writing in English, discussing several ways they might be categorized. Includes commentary on pilgrimage narratives and on CT as a fictional example.

Traces attitudes toward and depictions of anarchy and apocalypse in medieval political and penitential traditions, suggesting that they can be associated with communalism as well as with disruption, then and now. Includes comments on Chaucer's (and…

Depictions of female and male aging in WBT and MerT reflect the reality that human beings wish to remain desirable "in spite of advanced aging."

O'Neill surveys Chaucer's attitudes toward age and gender in CT, with particular focus on WBPT. In CT, the "medieval, ageing Englishwoman as a sexual being emerges with . . . dignity and vitality."

After a discussion of good and evil in medieval romance, especially Arthurian matter, Goller turns to authors who express opinions about war: Wycliffe, a pacifist, and Gower and Chaucer, who are ambivalent about war. Examines Chaucer's KnT, Mel,…

Argues that Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" combines the concern with Boethian logic and necessity found in TC with Ramist thinking, indicating that Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford, was the author of the play. The combination prompts a…

Tallies a number of specific "[i]nfluences, echoes, or borrowings from Chaucer in English poetic tradition as it developed between Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, and Shakespeare," mentioning familiar instances and adding ones previously unnoticed.…

Treats the Pardoner as a "foot-in-the-door salesman" who is confident in his own skills and believes that his "frankness is disarming." The "agonized sincerity" that George Lyman Kittredge perceived in lines PardT 6.916-18 is not "agonized" but…

Verse retelling of selections from CT (all but Mel, SNPT, CYPT, ManPT, and ParsPT) with reduced plots, simplified rhetoric, and modernized English in ballad stanzas. Cuddington adapts the links to unify the selections, which are arranged in the…

Chaucer's Anel explores the "dilemma of the modern poet in the late Middle Ages." The "Thebanness" of the text engages its Boethianism as a competing and fatalistic view of memory and history. Allusions to Statius, Corinna, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, and…

A research guide that review major lines of Chaucer criticism, which is becoming increasingly diverse.

This guide for undergraduates treats astrology, the zodiac, humors, therapies, Chaucer's authorities, medieval attitudes toward medicine, and the GP Physician.

The poem's central interest lies in the attempt by two human souls to establish the deepest and most testing of relationships. The representation of this relationship involves more than a dialogue: it insinuates a dialectical process that worries…

Claims that writing about painting in England began with Chaucer's "definition of visual art" in PhyT 6.9ff., sketching classical and medieval background to Chaucer's description, particularly Pliny, Bartholomeus Anglicus, John Trevisa, and the Roman…

A British Library copy of John Urry's Works of Chaucer, shelf-mark 642.m.1, contains Thomas Tyrwhitt's notes. These notes record Tyrwhitt's "progress towards his own edition," including commentary on glosses, source material, and apocrypha.

Identifies and describes portraits of authors in initials of British Museum MS. Add. 42131. Two of the three depictions of Chaucer are by the same hand as the miniature accompanying Hoccleve's Regement of Princes (Arundel MS. 38).

Antifeminism is prevalent throughout CT in depictions of women, assumptions about them, and attitudes toward female-male relations. Nevertheless, CT is still considered a "master-piece" of literature, evidence that critics have not completed the work…

Through his sexual ambiguity and his exposure of the illusory nature of social hierarchy, the Pardoner is a "double threat." Through him, Chaucer "provisionally negates" the model of the three estates and also "demonstrates, through the fates of the…

An analogy between gender and class applied to HF reveals that Lady Fame assumes a typical paternal role in naming the tidings that exit the House of Rumor. Although Chaucer's source is Ovid, he divides Fame's house along strict class lines--the…

Collects twelve stories that explore "the notions of fate, destiny, and coincidence," including a prose adaptation of the PardT, "A Meeting with Death: Adapted from 'The Pardoner's Tale' from 'The Canterbury Tales'" (pp. 79-90), which modifies the…

An adaptation of NPT, "retold and illustrated" by Helen Ward for young children. Appends comments on the plot and explanatory notes that focus on the barnyard breeds depicted in the illustrations.

Thirteen papers on topics ranging from Old English to eighteenth-century British literature. For three papers that pertain to Chaucer, search for Proceedings of the 14th Northern Plains Conference on Earlier British Literature under Alternative…

A collection of essays highlighting "dark," unsettling, and culturally unsavory elements across the Chaucer canon. For individual pieces, search for Dark Chaucer under Alternative Title.