Browse Items (16472 total)

John Fowles's novel"A Maggot," set in eighteenth-century England, is similar to CT in several ways, from its opening premise to its general structure as a series of "tales" (reconstructions of mysterious events surrounding a death) told by various…

Barrington studies examples of "Chaucer's appearances in American popular culture over the past two hundred years": Percy MacKaye's play, pageant, and opera; James Norman Hall's WWI memoir "Flying with Chaucer" (1930), Anne Maurey's pageant "May Day…

In the fifteenth century, Chaucer was admired chiefly as the founder of English eloquence, betraying English anxiety about French influences. The patronage networks that promoted Chaucer as a literary icon also promoted translations of the works of…

Freer examines modernist uses of the past in Eliot's "The Waste Land" and the English movie "A Canterbury Tale," directed by Michael Powell. Explores several allusions to Chaucer.

Kim gauges T. S. Eliot's debt to CT in "The Waste Land," examining Eliot's poem as a pilgrimage that modifies a number of Chaucer's techniques and devices: the opening reverdie, multiple voices and tales, use of sources, focus on marriage, and more.

Twelve essays by individual authors, with an introduction by the editors that discusses modern England's ambivalent fascination with the Middle Ages, including, briefly, Shakespeare and Fletcher's "Two Noble Kinsmen" - an adaptation of Chaucer's KnT.…

Many causes contributed to the change in climate, particularly Bolingbroke's seizure of the throne from Richard II in 1399 and the concomitant changes in relationships between princes and poets, between poets and audiences, and between audiences and…

Website designed for students, teachers, and school districts, with emphasis on preparation for college study; includes a search engine. Its Learning Guides includes numerous pages that pertain to Chaucer and his works, each with multiple internal…

In the opening poem of "Fables Ancient and Modern," Dryden draws a parallel between himself and Chaucer. The "fairest Nymph" in that parallel should be identified as the Duchess of Lancaster, as proposed by Walter Scott in 1808, rather than Joan of…

Whereas fifteenth-century writers such as Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Skelton wrote texts that engaged in "a kind of conversation" with Chaucer, sixteenth-century writers treated Chaucer as a distant topic of philological study. Simpson argues that this…

Comments on twenty-first century adaptations of CT on stage and screen, in rap performance, and in imitative fiction, e.g., Peter Ackroyd's ""Clerkenwell Tales," Baba Brinkman's "Rap Canterbury Tales," RSC and BBC productions, David Dabydeen's "The…

Describes the context and content of Hall's 1930 publication, "Flying with Chaucer," focusing on his quotations from CT and their role in his memoir.

Bourgne studies the links between architecture and Chaucer's transposition ("his new ekphrasis") into literary compositions.

Drawing on BD, TC, and the Gawain poet, Bourgne studies the influence of architecture on poetry.

"Working within and yet exploding New Critical terminology," E. Talbot Donaldson's studies of Chaucer's irony--exemplified in his writing on Criseyde--are grounded in his deep understanding of rhetoric. They anticipate Linda Hutcheon's theory of…

Putter compares Chaucer's techniques to the "close control" of syllable counting by alliterative poets. Although the metrical goals of these poets differ from those of Chaucer, the means whereby alliterative poets achieve control are similar to…

Bergeson explores the semantic and dramatic range of Middle English "reden"--advise, counsel, read, interpret--as it is used and enacted in BD, HF, PF, and TC.

Discursive description of Middle English, focusing on Chaucer's dialect and usage, divided into eight chapters: (1) Why Study Chaucer's Language?; (2) Writing in English; (3) What Was Middle English?; (4) Spelling and Pronunciation; (5) Vocabulary;…

Characterizes the language of Chaucer's day and emphasizes his range and synthesis of styles, exemplifying features of Middle English and Chaucer's dexterous uses of it in poetry and prose. Comments at length on the opening of GP, on Astr, on uses of…

Employing the "standard" ME dialect of the Home Counties of southeastern England as a baseline, Shackleton applies a number of quantitative variational measures (clustering, distance regressions, variant-area regressions, barrier analysis, and…

Explores an apparent disconnect between pedagogical goals of classes that study Chaucer's literature and those that study the history of the English language, suggesting that sociolinguistic approaches can help bridge the gap.

Scrutinizes Chaucer's use of Latin, demonstrating that his intratextual and extratextual Latin terms, phrases, and sentences are "formulas" and "quotations," not his own inventions. Twomey briefly surveys the development of Anglo-Latin and its…

E. Talbot Donaldson's commentary on FranT in "Chaucer's Poetry" exemplifies his criticism "at its best": "[c]onstructive provocation, rather than dogmatic mastery."

Suggests and discusses the value of several group projects for teaching a large class of Chaucer students (200 plus).

Nine essays on pedagogical topics by various authors, with web resources, suggestions for further reading, and index. The introduction (by Ashton) emphasizes the need for teachers to facilitate active learning. For individual essays, search for…