Browse Items (16472 total)

The violent anti-Semitism of PrT attracts critical attention, but a variety of brief, positive depictions of Jews occurs elsewhere in CT, reflecting the dynamic nature of medieval attitudes.

Affiliations between women and Fortune recur throughout MkT, a facile parallel rendered ridiculous by Chaucer's depiction of the Monk and the Monk's tale-telling style.

In MkT,Zenobia is punished for transgressing her gender; and symbols of her former power (including the vitremyte, here newly interpreted) become burlesque attributes.

Explores tensions among the Boethian, Platonic form of Mel as a didactic dialogue, the Tale's practical Aristotelian subject matter, and its status as a compilation of composite proverbs. Reflecting a literate author, Mel modifies its sources and…

Examines the cardinal virtues, especially prudence, from the Socratic philosophers to the late Middle Ages. Considers Mel in an epilogue.

Through extensive use of "multiple dialogue introducers," Chaucer creates a "mimetic representation of speech" in Mel and thus invites a listening audience to be part of the fictional conversation and, beyond that, to emulate it by taking time to…

DeMarco clarifies the classical and medieval distinctions between "public" and "private" violence and explores efforts to justify each type of violence, showing that Prudence's advice to Melibee is "secular," "pragmatic," and ultimately Ciceronian.…

Defines medieval romance as a narrative (usually poetic) that follows a hero's encounters with "love, ladies, and adventures, culminating in a happy ending." Whetter explores these features in Middle English romances, particularly Malory's "Morte…

While considering how speech in narrative poetry may represent "a distinct category within linguistic discourse," Coley reads ManT as a Chaucerian interaction with William of Ockham's rejection of longstanding Augustinian "hierarchies."

Despite recurrent uncertainty, the location of "Bobbe-up-and-doun" mentioned in ManP is surely the same place as Harbledown.

Chaucer may have intended to end MkT with the account of Zenobia--extracting it from LGW--and thereby to offer her narrative as a remedy for the Monk's "spiritual condition," which develops over the course of CT. Lindeboom compares Chaucer's…

The Vulgate's sheer availability offers compelling evidence that Chaucer used the Vulgate Bible, while faint lexical echoes of the "Bible historiale" suggest ancillary use of the "historiale." The Wycliffite Bible's candidacy may be ruled out on a…

Reexamines the anonymous and neglected Chaucerian "Isle of Ladies," accepted as a work by Chaucer from the time of Speght's 1598 edition of the works of Chaucer until its rejection by Skeat in his edition. Uses "Isle of Ladies" to reread Chaucer's BD…

A two-volume lemmatized concordance to Bo, arranged alphabetically, based on The Riverside Chaucer. Each entry includes a headword, part of speech, references to standard dictionaries (MED, OED, and others), definitions, frequency of occurrence, a…

A critical text of Bo, collated "with all medieval and late-medieval authorities and also with the modern critical editorial tradition." Includes a list of glosses and an extensive introduction, with a survey of interpretive responses to Bo.

Employs Jacques Le Goff's ideas of "Church time" and "merchant's time" to consider reckoning of time and social rank in the York cycle, "Pearl," and works of Chaucer. In particular, Astr suggests knowledge of time, while MilT and ShT demonstrate…

Studies the currents and cross-currents of pedagogy, moral didacticism, and entertainment in children's literature, exploring how trends in reading and interpretation recur as the subject matter of the stories and help to define their historical…

Laird edits and describes portions of Trinity College Cambridge MS R.14.52 that pertain to scientific instruments, including several sections from Chaucer's Astr (conclusions 2.37,40,39,and 38).

Focusing on failures of the male body depicted in the consummation scene of TC and in the autobiographical episode of the C-text, Calabrese compares Troilus of TC and Will of "Piers Plowman" as masculine questors in search of truth. Pandarus…

Chaucer's "portrayal of Troilus as a soliloquizing, swooning lover . . . reads like a fulsome apologia" for Richard II. TC reflects Richard's relationship with Robert De Vere and reveals his "sexless marriage" with Anne. SNT and LGW defend sexless…

Employing the Lacanian theory of Slavoj Žižek, Sullivan examines the relationship of HF to Augustine's "Confessions," Virgil's "Aeneid," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," and Dante's "Divine Comedy," arguing that Chaucer and Dante rewrite…

Chaucer's interest throughout HF in the nature of phantoms--from dreams to spirits of the dead--ultimately reflects a single "immediate concern: the survival of his rehearsal of the dream in script, that is, the translation of his voice into our…

Chaucer's allusion to the legendary Welsh bard Glascurion in HF (line 1209) is paralleled by details that survive in the traditional ballad "Glasgerion," or "Glen Kindy." Echoes of the ballad tradition are also found in Gavin Douglas's "The Palice of…

Reconsiders the traditional dating of BD in light of the evolving relationship between Chaucer and John of Gaunt, as affected by Katherine Swynford. The date influences our reading of the poem.

Surveys commentary on the frontispiece to TC in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, MS 61, and argues that it was commissioned by Henry V as part of his program to promote Lancastrian legitimacy and English vernacular writing.