Browse Items (16472 total)

Refers to P.R. Stephenson's deployment of Chaucer as a descriptor for early twentieth-century Australian poetry, noting his assertion of "Chaucerian" as shorthand for "a golden age of national self-confidence in which cosmopolitan sophistication…

Refers to Elizabeth Gaskell's footnotes to "Mary Barton" that explain unfamiliar phrasing in terms of Chaucer and Langland, identifying them as evidence for the synchronic nature of the bigamous return plot in sensation novels.

Discusses John Gower's "Visio Anglie" as a departure from his usual compositional style and from his other treatments of the Revolt. Argues that specific depictions carry out a mimetic reenactment of the Revolt, rejecting the notion that Chaucer's…

Makes the case that Boccaccio responds in the many trial scenes of the "Decameron" to contemporary concerns about verisimilitude in judicial proceedings. Claims that Boccaccio shifts in the role of judicial figures from mediators to determiners of…

Explores Chaucer's "literary voice" as a self-conscious reflection of late-fourteenth-century vernacularizing.

Reviewing the traditional narrative of the Great Vowel Shift, with its recognition by Chaucer's early editors that major changes in prosody were underway, Giancarlo suggests revision of the monolithic GVS model in the direction of a more localized…

Assesses the political character of late medieval English poetry, arguing that it extends the political thinking found in contemporary legal writing. Focuses on the notion of "diversity" in "Piers Plowman" and other alliterative verse as an extension…

Carruthers reevaluates Troilus's weeping and lamentation in Book 4 of TC in the context of monastic tradition, including the works of Peter of Celle and Galen, that sees links "among perception, sensation, and rational process."

The annotations from Virgil and Seneca in a copy (not previously discussed) of Stow's edition of TC act much like footnotes in modern editions to identify such things as analogues. They also demonstrate that classical tag-lines had become common by…

The heavily annotated copy of Thynne held by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University shows what a sixteenth-century reader found of interest in Chaucer's story-telling, language, and moral vision.

Skilled in the law and both learned and adept in poetry, the Man of Law crafts a tale of sin, free will, and providence. Though Custance is steadfast, her will is free and consequential, the foundation of true judgment. MLT proposes a concept of…

Paradoxically, readers of Chaucer are assumed to respond "intuitively" and yet also to need the aid of specialized academic assistance. The Early English Text Society (EETS) and the Chaucer Society played crucial roles in creating this paradox and,…

Argues that the context and argument of Horobin's refutation of Fletcher's earlier essay are deficient (see "The Criteria for Scribal Attribution: Dublin, Trinity College, MS 244, Some Early Copies of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Canon of…

The narrator, Alcyone, and the Black Knight suffer from melancholy. Brain functions and anatomy, progress, and treatment of the illness are linked chronologically, and the time shifts are analogous to the order and process of brain physiology as…

In TC, especially bks. 2 and 4, Chaucer selected and reconstituted details from Dante and the classics for ironic purposes, treating sources as "history." Appendix: Petrarch's annotations to "Aeneid."

Considers Emelye's prayer in KnT in light of both Boccaccio's "Teseida" and the fertility symbolism in Chaucer's tale, concluding that the prayer should be understood in terms of Diana's various mythological powers, while the answer should be…

Assesses Griselda of ClT in light of the folkloric tradition of the "Chichevache," said to have eaten ideal wives in medieval Europe. Includes visual representations of the legendary beast and describes the relations of ClT to its sources.

Ironically, the key-words "hoolynesse" and "dotage" suggest the gap between January's view of marriage and his actual married life.

Points out that Chaucer develops the idea of interpretation through his works (especially CT), and demonstrates how Lydgate's "The Siege of Thebes," drawing on Chaucer, revolves around the ideas of truth and interpretation.

Assesses the role of Pandarus in TC as a "go-between" and as "spokesman" for and agent of typical medieval understandings of love, fortune, suffering, and the tenuousness of human happiness.

Observes several traditional conventions of love in TC, especially Troilus's suffering and Pandarus's role as go-between.

Compares TC with Boccaccio's "Il filostrato" and points out there are two kinds of death for Troilus in TC, as well as salvations in the Chaucer and Boccaccio texts. Traces the continuity of the theme of death from TC to CT. In Japanese, with English…

In Sted and Mel, Chaucer either could not or did not make his attitude about the political and religious problems of his day clear. Akahori examines why he gave his hearty, moral advice to Richard II and what he really intended to say.

Analyzes the concepts of mutability and instability in MLT, arguing that Chaucer constantly approaches these concepts in relation to worldly authorities, and that this implies lessons for such authorities. In Japanese, with English abstract.

Contrasts the master-pupil relationships in CYT and Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and their concepts of philosophy. Argues that CYT ridicules the false nature of philosophy. In Japanese, with English abstract.