Browse Items (16472 total)

References to "Lameth" in WBT and SqT comprise links in a sturdy chain connecting the tragic actions of Shakespeare's prince of Denmark to Lamech, a "(pseudo-)biblical figure associated with murder, rage, and vengeance."

Discusses fairies and elves within medieval romances and folklore. Analyzes Chaucer's use of "fayrye" in the MerT, "fairy mistresses" in Th, and the "fairy woman" in the WBT.

Studies the tradition in which God speaks through humans and the proto-reformation implications of literary texts where the laity use speech usually reserved for priests. Chapter 4, "Cursed Speakers," considers the carter's and old woman's curses in…

Nicknames for geometric propositions occur in TC ("dulcarnon," "flemyng of wrecches") and one seems to be at play at the end of SumT ("figura demonis"), where the squire's "natural" solution to the problem of dividing the fart opposes the…

Historical analysis of early women's speech; describes early modern England's regulations of women's speech and women's subversive strategies to represent themselves as subjects in masculine discourses (including court depositions). Examines speech…

Considering such works as "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," and PardPT, the author identifies finitude and nothingness as the roots of despair in late medieval and early modern works, as well as in modern…

Analyzes varying treatments of the "sergeant" character in Chaucer, the Anonymous French, Petrarch, and Boccaccio by considering the character's rhetorical effect in each. Rather than imitating a character either cruel (as in the French) or not-cruel…

Unlike "free-indirect discourse," Bakhtin's "hybrid discourse" readily allows analysis of written and spoken language in narrative, especially in texts before 1900. The portrait of the Squire, hybridizing both estates satire and "Le Roman de la…

Considers the validity and applicability of the critical concepts of "reading lesbian" and "reading queer," briefly suggesting the implications of imagining lesbian and queer audiences for readings of MerT.

Assesses Jacques Lacan's and Slovoj Žižek's discussions of courtly love, focusing on the hermaphroditic potential of the Courtly Lady, and discusses FranT for the ways that hermaphroditic and masochistic tendencies inhabit the main characters'…

While vernacular precedents for Chaucer's satirical portrait of a pardoner have so far eluded scholars, five Latin exempla in a fourteenth-century French Dominican's collection, "Scala coeli," suggest that "the pardoner was already a type of the…

In the context of medieval humoral symptomatology, Chaucer's Pardoner fits the profile of a phlegmatic male. This diagnosis explains, in turn, his corrupt character, for "incontinence, excess, deceitfulness, cowardice, and negligence" in a man were…

The program of illustrations in the unique witness to "La Crónica Troyana de Alfonso XI" inadvertently undermines Alphonso XI's efforts to situate his people and himself within a "heroic, even mythical, past" and predicts the tragedy that would…

This introduction to a collection of essays on "Representing the Middle Ages" begins by providing an overview of representations of experience in the NPT. After presenting an overview of key criticism, the article asserts that the tale seeks to…

Reads CYP and ManPT in light of Agamben's theories of sovereignty and exclusion and de Certeau's notion of a "person in-between," considering as well several instances of slander and accusation in late-medieval London records. London, the Host, and…

Presents PrT as one of several texts that are considered as performed/heard experiences, and as instruments of "late medieval identities and communities."

Places HF in the intellectual and philosophical contexts of its era, particularly the tradition of Boethius and Wyclif, arguing that Chaucer supports the existence of universals.

As part of a larger consideration of John Shirley's role in English literary culture and canon formation, mentions the presence of several unique Chaucer poems in Shirley's library.

Uses ABC, Hoccleve's "Complaint of the Virgin Before the Cross," and other sources to outline a mutually reinforcing relationship between the Lancastrians (orthodox supporters of the Church) and the Church (which allied with the Lancastrians).

Provides historical, literary, and religious backgrounds to PrT, intended for classroom teaching of the tale and focusing on ethical values. In Hungarian.

Explores the type, use, and functions of formulas in Th, in relation to parody; in Mel, in dramatic form reinforcing allegory.

This comparative study of the two texts, based on the same motif of the gathering of birds, aims at exposing the spiritual and moral differences of the works. The theological and philosophical intention in Attar has disappeared in Chaucer's treatment…

Discusses General Ethan Allen Hitchcock's 1865 published explication of Chaucer's BD. Argues that this study of Chaucer's dream visions offers new insights into "Chaucer's reception in the nineteenth-century United States."

In the chapter "Becoming Woman in Chaucer: 'On ne naît pas femme, on le devient en mourant'," Gilbert reads BD and LGW through the lenses of Robert Hertz's and Jacques Lacan's theories, respectively. BD represents a response to death that follows a…

Asserts that Chaucer's dream visions dramatize the act of reading and illustrate the author's interest in the reciprocity of author, text, and reader in making and renewing of meaning. Argues that Chaucer represents the failure of all kinds of…