Browse Items (16472 total)

Examines the "same-sex union of adoptive brotherhood" between the Summoner and the Pardoner and assesses the economic underpinnings of sworn brotherhood in FrT and SumT. Chaucer's alignment of homosexual and heterosexual issues in the Marriage Group…

Identifies possibilities for recognizing "political resonances" in ClT, discussing Walter's title (marquis) as it was granted in 1385 to Robert de Vere, Richard's favorite. The title was "unusual" and "short-lived" in Chaucer's experience. Olson…

Identifies "uncanny" resemblances between Griselda of ClT and Philippa de Coucy, wife of Robert de Vere. Similarities between the women and their treatment at the hands of their husbands (divorces) would have prompted Chaucer's immediate audience to…

The Pardoner's "misunderstanding" of gluttony as a sin "becomes emblematic of his inability to appreciate significance in general." Lynch discusses digestive imagery from medieval commentaries on memory and meditation to clarify the nature of the…

Kelly re-considers the Pardoner's sexuality in light of biblical imagery, medieval medical lore, and fifteenth-century reception of PardT, arguing that implications of effeminacy in GP suggest neither homosexuality nor sterility but sexual…

Knight calls for a critical confrontation with the semiotics of place in Chaucer, commenting on a number of topographical references in Chaucer's works, suggesting closer examination of implications of places to which Chaucer traveled (especially…

Pearsall considers a range of medieval visual and verbal landscapes, exploring how they signify "something other" and enable the observer of the landscape to rove freely and "compose its meaning as if afresh." The essay refers to BD, PF, LGW, the…

Yeager contrasts Gower's uses of imagery in the 'Tale of Constance" with Chaucer's techniques in MLT, arguing that Gower is more minimalist, but that, like Chaucer, Gower challenges readers to discover the moral implications of the world he…

Explores the "iconographic vocabulary" of Pentecost and its affiliations in Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival," Dante's "Inferno," Lus de Cames's "Lusiads," and Chaucer's SumT. Chaucer's version combines details from verbal and pictorial traditions…

Dates HF in the mid-1380s, positioning it as a "transitional work" between TC and CT and a reflection of Chaucer's status at the time as a king's man. Argues that LGW was written concurrently with CT, with LGWP-F as early as 1392, and revised as…

Corroborates Terry Jones's view that Chaucer was a pacifist, and argues that Jones and Chaucer both use humor and indirection against war. Chaucer was very earnest in his critiques of war in Mel and ParsT, but less direct in KnT and his description…

Comments on how the Hundred Years War "infiltrates" CT by way of "the first trio of portraits" and their depictions of late medieval warfare. Clarifies the meaning of "chyvachie" in the description of the Squire and dilates upon the significance of…

This is a short story, told from the first-person point of view of Chaucer's Plowman, who describes his early life, his distaste for his brother the Parson, and their pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Describes various depictions of monks and friars in late medieval English vernacular literature, observing that, despite prevalent anti-fraternal satire, friars "retained considerable support" in this literature. Because they were cloistered, monks…

Focuses on Gower's Tale of Florent as a poem with its own logic and beauty, using Chaucer's WBT to clarify Gower's purpose.

With its focus on sin, ParsT is the most Gowerian and least Chaucerian of the CT, even though Gower's presentation of sin is expository and Chaucer's indirect.

Chaucer had two sources for MLT: Gower's Confessio Amantis (2.587-1707) and Trevet's Chronicles, which also served as Gower's source. Placing all three versions side by side, one can find evidence that Gower was Chaucer's principal source.

Most people who could read and write in England in the late fourteenth century were capable of doing so in French, Latin, and English. Gower's nearly 90,000 lines of extant poetry--roughly apportioned into thirds of Anglo-Norman French, Latin, and…

Discussions of the "quarrel" between Chaucer and Gower (anchored in MLP) pose a Chaucer who was free of base, ingratiating attitudes toward his sovereign and who was the source of pure poeticality--language and aesthetics unpolluted by self-interest.…

Chaucer is a poet with a highly developed sense of the relative--someone who instinctively shies away from those absolutes necessary for the creation of "auctoritas," who denies experience in love, and who claims to be a mere reporter. This stance…

There are significant differences between Chaucer's and Gower's appropriations of the Roman de la Rose and its Latin antecedents. Gower's priestly Genius is an authority figure in the tradition of Boethius's Consolation. Chaucer's rejection of…

Examines classical sources for HF, LGW.

The pattern of sustained allusion to Gower's "Confessio Amantis" provides an important index to the purpose of MLT. Gower communicates the horror of a moral void; the Man of Law inveighs against Canacee's sinfulness. Chaucer's tale ultimately…

Tabulates correspondences between Gower's Tale of Constance ("Confessio Amantis" 2.587-1598) and available manuscripts of Trevet's Anglo-Norman original, seeking to identify Gower's source manuscript. Includes recurrent attention to Chaucer's MLT,…

Coleman considers the first recension of Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and the F version of LGWP for evidence of royal patronage, arguing that both were inspired by Anne of Bohemia and by the popularity of the "Flower and Leaf" conventions that Anne…