Browse Items (16472 total)

The Parson's attribution of a statement on the Crucifixion to Saint Augustine has never been identified; it may be a "Freudian slip," or it may originate in Augustine's detailed discussion of prelapsarian v. postlapsarian sexuality ("The City of God"…

Williams examines historical and cultural links between England and Portugal during the Middle Ages as well as circumstantial links between Chaucer and Fr. Hermenegildo de Tancos, author of "Orto do esposo," speculating on similarities between PardT…

The glossing of "gnof" as "churl" to describe John the carpenter is misleading, for John is characterized as a "caring, concerned man."

Questions the gloss of "gnof" (MilT 3188) in major editions of CT. In all of medieval literature, the word appears only here, and it cannot be elucidated from the context. The editor's gloss ("churl") is inconsistent with the behavior of John, whom…

The use of "gnof" to describe John the carpenter is appropriate because it suggests "churl" and "numbskull" and further emphasizes the "ease with which John is hoodwinked."

Argues that MerT reflects delusive male infantile fantasy, reading January as ego, Placebo as id, Justinus as super-ego, and May as an idealized mother figure. The Merchant's encomnium of marriage and Damain's courtly behavior are extensions of…

KnT 2681-82 do not (as Wolfgang Rudat supposed) echo Virgil's "Aeneid" 4.569-79 but instead adapt Juvenal's "Tenth Satire" 72-73 to identify Emily with changeable fortune.

In HF, Chaucer criticizes incompetent poets for pursuing fame, claiming fame for himself as a true poet. (In Korean, with English abstract.)

Considers Chaucer's sources for his allusion to the story of Saul and the Witch of Endor, and the possibility of a joke a Trevet's expense.

The affair between Mars and Venus enfigures three analyses of love: the least negative, "courtly" definition; the classical, "lascivious" definition; and the deterministic vision implied by the statues of the gods as planets.

Examining the ambiguous meaning of "ignotum per ignocius" (line 1457) explains the Yeoman's criticism of alchemy.

"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…

Although Chaucer's use of "termes" ranges from simple pun or word play to the emergence of an elaborate figurative pattern, his basic technique makes certain words gain power from use, context, and collocation and perhaps forms the basis of the…

To describe the arming of Sir Thopas, Chaucer employs a repetitive style that parodies that of arming scenes in Middle English romances.

Treats Mel as a "consolatio," not an allegory, of the same genre as Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "designed to cure an excess of wrath" and to promote "forgiveness." Identifies ways that Mel engages thematically with the other tales in…

Blends a "historicist" approach that sees Mel as topical to the later 1380s with "formalist" emphasis on its discontinuities and contradictions. Concludes that "in the context of the Appellants' struggles with Richard II,...the deconstruction of the…

Unlike other recent critics, who have viewed Mel as a "treatise," Kempton sees it as a "tale" with dramatic personages. It is meant not to enforce one didactic point but to teach us to give up the search for authority and to enjoy the play of…

In Mel Chaucer's idiomatic translation from the French of Renaud de Louens skillfully imitates and elaborates the "style clergial," especially in its use of introductory phrases, doublets, subordinate clauses, and trailing sentence structures.

Identifies physiognomic details in NPP and NPE that characterize the Nun's Priest as a "healthy and handsome young cleric, of temperate disposition." He "has the virtues of the widow" of NPT- (good health and moral rectitude) which counterpoint the…

SumP and various puns in SumT not only transform Friar John into a fart but also indicate that his prayers invert the Pentecostal wind and "suggest that his brethern share his odious nature."

Rejecting Siegfried Wenzel's view that the character Thomas suffers from insensitivity, Malone finds that Thomas shows more sensitivity to the death of his only child than his wife shows in all she says.

Sketches the range of Chaucer's diversity in CT and suggests that Chaucer abandons artistic diversity for the Parson's warning against sinful excess.

Examines Chaucer's two brief but similar references to the "St. Anne Trinity," a portrayal of Mary, Jesus, and St. Anne in the cultural context of fourteenth-century England. Concludes that the references in MLT and SNT represent two sides of a…

SqT is Chaucer's one foray into the genre of "interlace" romance, where characters and episodes are treated, then dropped, and subsequently treated again. SqT is not a parody like Th; it is a different genre that Chaucer wanted to try. He did not…