Browse Items (16472 total)

Argues that there is no valid reason for treating line 480 of BD as inauthentic; it derives from Thynne's edition which has as much authority as manuscripts.

The explanation for the condition of quire 10 in CT is that the leaves became disarranged after the scribe had completed the first half. The order that resulted from his error was ii-iii-i-iv-v-vi. After this faulty order was corrected, the order…

"The Works," edited by Speght (1598), sold in 1848 as part of Charles Lamb's library may be the same volume to which Keats refers in his letter of May 3(!), 1818. The copy at Lily Library of the University of Indiana is likely the one owned by Keats…

Deals with Manly and Rickert's erroneous procedures and conclusions regarding classification of manuscripts, scribal procedures, the Ellesmere MS, the Cardigan MS, HM 144, and the order of the tales.

Taking "olde thyngs" (GP 175, Monk's sketch) as a scribal corruption or emendation of the unattested "alder-thynge" eliminates problems of syntax, semantics, and meaning.

Review controversies regarding the editing of medieval texts, faults the new "Riverside Chaucer," which represents no "textual advance over Robinson 2," and judges that "what Bowers offers is the best of two worlds--fidelity to auctorial usage…

Questions long-established assumptions about the status of Cambridge Gg and examines Kane's methods for solving Gg 126-38. Argues that the G text of LGWP is "a modern and potentially misleading critical fiction"; that Gg should be regarded as a…

Examines the textual tradition of Bo in light of the twelfth- to fifteenth-century textual tradition of Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," suggesting that the best text of Bo is Cambridge University Library ii.iii.21.

Rejects the "drunkenness hypothesis" as a way of explaining the Pardoner's character, arguing that pride and "counterfeit humility" underlie the characterization and that the "[s]uspicion, aversion, and contempt" of the pilgrim audience toward him…

Provides historical background to the characterization of the Squire in GP 1.85-88, focusing on the economics, politics, and tactics of the so-called "Crusade of 1383" (or "Despenser's Crusade"), the implications of the word "chivachie," and ways…

Describes how "the part Pandarus attempts to play" in TC "is intended by Chaucer, though not by Pandarus, as a parody of the philosophical counsel offered to Boethius" in the Consolation of Philosophy. Focuses on the comedy of the "first scene"…

Identifies patterns that indicate Chaucer's "careful planning" of a sequence of groupings of pilgrims in GP, focusing on audience expectations, points of views, tones, satirical targets, and the traditional three estates.

Reviews evidence in GP that Chaucer's Summoner suffers from venereal disease rather than leprosy, using it as an example of little-known or overlooked scholarship that might be lost or ignored. Cites other examples more briefly, including the record…

Argues that Chaucer was influenced by the now-lost Prologue to "Sir Orfeo" of the Auchinleck manuscript, evident in similarities in "concept, diction, and syntax" between the FranP and the extant versions of the "Orfeo" prologue and between the…

Surveys readings of PrT as a reflection of the Prioress's GP character, and explores the relations of these readings to dramatic approaches to the CT. Argues that there is "devastating satire" of the Prioress in GP and in PrT: the Tale fits the…

Assesses the Helen-Deiphebus sub-plot in TC for the ways that it reinforces the poem's theme of inconstancy and anticipates Criseyde's relationship with Diomedes.

Identifies two examples of the "memento mori" motif and two of "ubi sunt" in TC, three of these added by Chaucer to his material, and all of them contributing to the poem's dominant theme of the transitory nature of human love and life.

Several features of KnT indicate that the rules and forms of chivalry can dignify conduct but at the same time threaten to overwhelm or undercut what they are intended to achieve. Similar threats of form overwhelming content are evident in the tale's…

Considers Troilus's "altruistic love" of Criseyde to be one of the "outstanding examples in late medieval romance" of "self-abnegating love," i.e., "placing another's good before one's own." Troilus's hesitancy to act is a manifestation of this…

Negative elimination, sources, and proleptic passages isolate the moon, both symbol for inconstancy and threshold to immutability, as Troilus's port of death, logically compatible with the variants. Venus, traditionally combining the poem's themes…

"Guy of Warwick" served as an object of serious imitation as well as parody. The scene in BD engaging the dreamer with the man in black as traceable to this source, as are the deliberately naive questioner and other such devices for achieving…

The word "boy" occurs infrequently in contexts evocative of demonic connotations when ordinary denotations of the word are not appropriate. Boys whose actions in CT seem to be supernaturally evil illustrate the possibility that one connotation of…

The juxtaposed stories of Aeneas and the dreamer are linked by parallel plots, by the segmentation of narrative units, and by verbal elements like the repetition of key rhymes. These correspondences and those of two other journeys interwoven into…

Chaucer's use of the mouse, traditionally associated with gluttony and drunkenness, his juxtaposition of it to Christian terms like "charitee" and "tendre herte," and the possible allusion to Christ's sacrifice as Satan's "mousetrap" suggests harsh…

In the opening of GP, Chaucer follows the six days of Creation narrated in Genesis. The principles both of "natura naturata," created Nature, and of "natura naturans," renewing Nature, inform this passage.