Browse Items (16533 total)

Identifies several previously unnoticed references and allusions to Chaucer in Nathaniel Whiting's "I1 Insonio Insonadado" (1638), including two euphemisms for the sexual revenge in RvT.

Articulates a number of parallels and contrasts among the tellers and tales of KnT, MilT, RvT, and CkT, focusing on character, accident versus fate, intention, and paradox. Emphasizing the Knight's "chivalric idealism" and the "strong earthiness" of…

Argues that minstrelsy is the major target of Chaucer's burlesque in Tho--a "penetrating criticism of oral literary art" that is consistent with Chaucer's "position as a man of letters." Maintains that Tho and its juxtaposition with Mel indicate…

Suggests possible versions of "sorowe" for "soor" in KnT 1.1454.

Exploring multiple intertextualities between versions of the story of Troilus and Briseida in Benoit and Guido, mentions points of similarity in the exchange-of-prisoners scene where both Boccaccio (Filostrato) and Chaucer (TC) "adapted and modified"…

Explores the influence of Diomede's wooing in Benoit's "Roman" on Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and the "probable connection" between the lecture on gentility in the latter and in WBT, particularly 3.1113-24.

Identifies and assesses two previously unnoticed Chaucer allusions in William Penn's "Treatise of Oaths" (1675).

Identifies concerns with patience and marriage in sources and analogues of ClT, and explores the status of these concerns in medieval scriptural commentaries. Argues that ClT presents a clearly orthodox view of marriage which underlies the Clerk's…

Surveys critics' attention to Chaucer's word-play, and shows through multiple examples that such play is more common in his works than previously observed, especially his early works. Clarifies kinds of word-play in medieval rhetoric and…

Framed as justification for Sir Francis Kynaston's 1636 praise of TC as an epic poem, this essay analyzes themes, characterizations, and the ending of Chaucer's poem in light of Renaissance perspectives, especially on love.

Item not seen.

Suggests that aspects of the ritual of sacramental confession are noticeable in the fabricated version of Troilus's admission of love that Pandarus reports to Criseyde in TC 2.523ff. Also notes other echoes of confession in Books 1 and 2 that…

Analyzes Chaucer's use of the auxiliary verb "ginnan"/"gan," a periphrastic preterit, in contrast with simple preterits, to produce "distinctions in tempo, intensity, and manner." Comments on examples such as "gan behold"/"beheld", "gan to turne"/…

Explicates the unity or the "designed togetherness" of GP, focusing on various pairings and oppositions as they evoke and engage varieties of love (heavenly and worldly in the Prioress), mature and youthful (Knight and Squire), clerical and secular…

Offers historical "bird-lore" as evidence of the poisonousness of the "wariangles" (shrikes, or butcher-birds), cited in the description of the summoner in FrT 3.1408).

Suggests that "Chauntecleer's dream . . . prophesied the col-fox's attack" in NPT 73215-18, adducing the neo-Platonic tradition that associates "the imagination with prophetic vision through dreams," and noting that Dante uses "alta fantasia" ("high…

Suggests that NPT "reflects . . . the controversy which took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries between the secular clergy and the friars." Adduces use of the name "Russell" and several other parallels with French moralized analogues…

Anthologizes selections from poems by British and American writers. arranged alphabetically by author, some accompanied by critical and pedagogical materials. Includes selections from GP: 1-78, 118-62, and 361-92 (opening, Knight, Prioress, and Wife…

Identifies an approximate quotation from Chaucer's Pity in Edward Du Bois's satirical novel, "Old Nick" (1801), and suggests that it is "in all probability the first quotation from Chaucer's works in prose fiction."

Reviews opinions about the textual status of NPE and six additional lines found in four manuscripts of the CT often thought to be spurious. Considering issues of tale order, sequence of composition, dramatic consistency, and authorial or scribal…

Describes records available in the "Black Prince's Register" that pertain to Walter Roet, a "member of the family into which Chaucer married" and, perhaps, a "brother of Chaucer's wife" Philippa.

Identifies parallels between various aspects of PardPT and Master Odo of Cheriton's sermons, and includes passage on pardoners from Cheriton's "Fables." Suggests that these intertextualities, both general and specific, indicate that it is "possible,…

Suggests that "wynne" in TC 1.390 means to "complain," connecting it with rare but similar usage in Old and Middle English.

Argues that the Reeve's sword is rusty (GP 1.618) "because the Reeve is past the age for using it." Suggests that he wears it as a symbol of his desire for youth and comments on Chaucer's multiple uses of signifying details.

Argues that the "the bulk of Milton's system of elision was a part of the traditional mechanics of English syllabic verse," detailing the tradition that precedes Milton and Milton's own practices. Chapter 2 analyzes Chaucer's practices in elision,…