Browse Items (16472 total)

KnT is a scholastic romance whose primary subject is universal human nature conceived in varying combinations of will and intellect, and its overriding concern is human freedom. From its position as the first Canterbury tale, one might infer that…

Proposes that KnT has a "two-fold focus: one centering on theories of human nature--Franciscan, Dominican, and Chaucerian; the other centering on theories of valid language use, whether literal alone or figurative as well." Allegory is not the right…

Discrepancy between intention and outcome is a theme of CT, especially in KnT, WBT, and MerT. Pilgrim narrators produce unintended effects in listeners especially in the Host.

In Chaucer's three most noble, most feudal tales, the meaning of the characters' oaths is subjectively conditioned by their makers--reflecting a decline from the feudal ideal that oaths could be objectively understood. The subjectivity of oaths is…

Argues that Dorigen of FranT is educable and capable of philosophical speculation but, as a woman limited by her culture, "she is unable to reason out ethical choices for herself." Through Dorigen (and other female characters), Chaucer criticizes the…

Medieval encyclopedism, although typically treated as a manifestation of "closed-systems" thinking, has many dimensions that suggest a wider, unresolved view of the universe. Chaucer's works, with other encyclopedic texts, offer examples of open…

A variety of ethical systems--Christian, Boethian, Epicurean, Ciceronian, etc.--were available to Chaucer's audience, and he engages these systems in ways that enable the audience to observe and choose among them. Like commentators on Epicurean…

Assesses brief passages from Langland and Chaucer as indications of late-fourteenth-century proto-pragmatism--or reliance on experience and rhetorical argument as epistemological modes. The variegated opinions, unstable exempla, and inconclusive…

Chaucer's interest in future contingencies (a problem raised by Aristotle) in part shapes the narratives in TC and NPT. The musings of Troilus and Criseyde about the future rely on Boethian principles (among others). Chauntecleer's theory--that…

A research guide that review major lines of Chaucer criticism, which is becoming increasingly diverse.

Reviews scholarship and examines the hunt in BD in the context of other portrayals of the hunt in medieval literature. Because of its portrayal of sudden and shocking death, the "ubi sunt" tradition is an appropriate context: the poem ends with the…

Explores historical and literary traditions of the noble hunt,addressing Christian and classical backgrounds, hunting manuals, narrative motifs, a variety of Middle English romances, and the figures of Sir Tristrem and Christ as hunters. Middle…

Surveys critical assessments of the hunting episode in BD, explicates details of the episode, and reads it as a representation of worldly bliss. The episode and the allusion to the hunt near the end of the poem frame the Black Knight's account of…

Explores the "literary negotiation of the macabre aesthetic in Middle English literature." Chapter 2, "The Progress of the Dead: From Body to Revenant," discusses "'physical' return of the dead" in BD and PrT.

Following Foucault, Root examines the theory that patristic tradition and ecclesiastical practice eventually permitted confessional self-representation, as seen especially in WBT, Livre du voir dit, and Libro di buen Amor.

Root draws on selected primary and secondary sources to illustrate that WBP was influenced by the doctrine of mandatory confession decreed by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.

Examines how the confessional mandate of the Fourth Lateran Council provoked the rise of vernacular penitential manuals, and their impact on literary characters from Chaucer, Machaut, and the Libro de buen amor.

Personal chronicle of problems in dealing with technology in teaching, including inadequate facilities, poor student preparation, and time-consuming searching and class preparation. Includes two appendices: a "Labyrinth" assignment and student…

ParsT is an examination of conscience that prepares for the act of confession that is Chaucer's Ret. Late-medieval notions of self differ from modern ones; the process of preparing for confession led the penitent to recognize and discard the sinful…

Item not seen. Information derived from WorldCat records.

Chronological anthology of selections and excerpts from philosophy, religious texts, and fiction, representing the historical "varieties" of evil. Includes excerpts from ParsT, entitled "The Seven Deadly Sins" (pp. 100-05) in modern translation.

Analyzes the "sentence" of BD through its sentence structure. Any idea of "tragic reversal" disintegrates under the pressure of "forward-looking" consecutive sentences.

Concentrates on "colloquialism" in Chaucer's syntax in the context of popular romance and poetry, including some examples from Old English, finding that "discontinuous patterns of word-order" and "negative forms of emphatic expression" contribute to…

Despite the increasing difficulty of retaining the Chaucer "canon" in university curricula of the 1990s, Chaucer-teaching is alive and flourishing, as evidenced in the colloquium on teaching at the 1994 New Chaucer Society meeting and the papers…

The electronic "preprints" of "Teaching Chaucer in the Nineties" revealed both the extent to which professors and students have become electronically literate and large disparities in the availability of electronic resources. Ironically, no papers…