Browse Items (16472 total)

"This thesis examines the poetics and politics of ‘olde bokes’ (Legend of Good Women, G, 25) in selected works by Chaucer and Gower, paying particular attention to the way in which both writers appropriate their sources and the theories of…

"This study aims to offer a new literary biography of Thomas Dekker (c. 1572-1632) and demonstrates the ways in which he refashions his principal source, Geoffrey Chaucer." Includes attention to Dekker's uses of ClT, WBT, and ideas of "game" and…

Item not seen. From the abstract: "this study presents the frame as a strategic locus of value in the literary text, arguing that the frame both constitutes and is constituted by an interplay between stylistic 'insides' and ideological 'outsides'. .…

Item not seen. From the abstract: "This thesis investigates a particular discourse which conflated ideas of male sexuality and work . . . in the particular social and economic climate of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century London." Discerns…

Distinguishes elegy and consolation as literary modes, considering the notion of Purgatory as a major underlying feature of the latter. Examines "Pearl" and BD as elegies, reading the latter "as a resistant and secularising monument to suffering that…

Argues that Chaucer modified, extended, and developed the "conventions" of medieval rhetoric (including the "doctrine of three styles"), exploring his uses in light of the "Poetria Nova" of Geoffrey of Vinsauf and the pseudo-Ciceronian "Rhetorica ad…

Distinguishes two kinds of medieval romance hero: those who "are defined by institutional virtues" and those defined by "personal attributes and experiences." Treats characters from various romances, examining Palamon, Arcite, and Theseus of KnT in…

Shows how "Middle English writers tested the capabilities of their vernacular, experimenting with new genres and styles of literary composition, as well as with discursive conventions and practices borrowed from nonliterary fields," particularly the…

Shows "how the frequent conflation between anger and revenge has shaped the representations of what we might call anger management in early English literature," from representative Old English works to Shakespeare. Two chapters focusing on Mel, ClT,…

Shows how MLT and ClT "prove Chaucer's functional use of rhetoric for purposes of decorum," considering the characterizations of the narrators', their uses of rhetoric, and their intentions. Considers source materials, comments on the Wife of Bath,…

Explores the sources and meanings of Chaucer's "analogies" between animals and humans, focusing on hares, dogs, horses, wolves, and sheep, arguing that, generally, Chaucer uses them to indicate the need for humans to control their "natural passions."

Comments on CT as a "text born in trauma," observing "numerous wounds" in KnT and MkT and linking them with James Comey's 2017 testimony before the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

Five essays by various authors, a brief introduction by the editor, a chronology, and selective bibliographies on Chaucer's work, primary and secondary. Three essays are reprints (George L. Kittredge's on the marriage group; Larry D. Benson's on…

Explores patterns in the meanings and applications of two fundamental concepts in late-medieval English tradition: truth (trouthe), which shifted from "integrity" to "conforming to fact"; and treason, which shifted from "personal betrayal" to a…

Explores the implications of secrecy represented in several topics and depicted in medieval texts: confession in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, gossip in WBPT and HF, occulted science in Pseudo-Aristotle's Secret of Secrets and Pseudo-Albert's The…

A revised version of the 1952 publication, with largely revamped discussions of the "Geography of English" and "The American Language," with the latter standing alone in a new section. This revised edition expands the list of works consulted, the…

Papers presented at the Fifth International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, March 20-23, 1986, Philadelphia, Pa.

Treats the debate over the problem of salvation for the virtuous pagan and the solutions of theologians in the medieval Church and then concentrates on Dante, "St. Erkenwald," and "Piers Plowman."

The section entitled "Authentic Languages" includes a sub-section on Chaucer that raises questions about modern ability to gauge the authenticity of the northern literary dialect in RvT.

Appreciative commentary on nineteen major works of literature, from Genesis to T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." The section on Chaucer (pp. 69-83) focuses on critical attitudes toward his comedy, irony, and rhetoric, and assesses the "implied…

An introduction to Chaucer for elementary and junior high school students, with nine chapters arranged biographically from boyhood to "final years." Each chapter includes a quiz. The apparatus includes a chronology and timeline, a bibliography, and…

Explores the "predominant secularity" of Chaucer's "attitude" toward the liturgy in his various references to and uses of ecclesiastical calendars, legendaries (saints' lives, hagiographies, or lectionaries), sacramentals, breviaries, missals,…

Diachronic analysis of how reflexive pronouns follow the "transformation of English from a synthetic to an analytic language," particularly their increase in "Uninterpretable features." Includes a section on Chaucer's reflexive pronouns (pp. 86-91)…

Social history of western medieval Europe from the "Barbarian Invasions" to "The Last of the Middle Ages," presented for young adults. The final section of the book (pp. 221-46) focuses on Chaucer, imaginatively reconstructing his daily life and…

Presents essays that explore ways that manuscript evidence is used to understand "literary, geographic, scientific, devotional, and hagiographical knowledge" in the later Middle Ages. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for Taxonomies of…