Browse Items (16538 total)

Compares MerT with "Comedy of Lydia" (an analogue) and suggests that Chaucer looks on the January-May follies with amusement whereas the laughter in "Comedy" is didactic.

Part 1 describes the Canterbury pilgrims that qualify as "gentils" by birth, education, or accomplishment (Knight, Prioress, Monk, Squire, Franklin, Merchant, Guildsmen, Sergeant of Law, Physician, Parson, and Nun's Priest), explaining details of…

A sociolinguistic exploration of Criseyde's grammar, literacy, pronunciation, and verbosity, considered in relation to the vocabulary and syntax of fourteenth-century upper-class women.

Lists complex words (those with modifying prefixes and suffixes) and compound words in F. N. Robinson's "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer," 2d ed.

An investigation of the relationship between negatives and negative expressions, content, and characterization in ClT.

Akahori analyzes characteristics of May in MerT, focusing on her presence in January's garden and nuances of the adjective "fressh." Exploring instances of the word throughout CT, the author shows that its use in MerT is sarcastic.

Traces in biblical, classical, and political sources the development of the idea that the Pope and other rulers gain sovereignty through "mystical marriage" to their respective institutions, arguing that WBT "bears a striking similarity to [this]…

Shows that "The Plowman's Tale" was published (ca. 1536) by Thomas Godfray with a "calculated and propagandist purpose," part of Henry VIII's "propagandist organization" affiliated with Thomas Berthelet, Henry VIII's "official printer." Demonstrates…

Reviews anti-Semitism in PrT from a historical point of view. Defines anti-Semitism and its typical features: the death of the clergeon mirrors that of Christ; the Jews are linked with the devil; and they engage in usury. PrT is definitely…

Examines the "voices" of the narrators of SNT, MerT, and WBP. In understanding voices, it is important to remember two levels: the immediate and the inherited past. The three tales exhibit plain speaking in different ways.

Examines thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Anglo-French, noting that Chaucer was steeped in an Anglo-French environment. This very Anglicized French--a second language of culture used to keep records--was the French Chaucer knew best, and his lexis…

In a wide-raging review of folktales and fairytales, Blamires touches on MLT, NPT, and FrT.

Mentions how the Susannah story was used in MLT.

Notes the existence of a nineteenth-century transcript of the Rylands manuscript made by William James Pynwell, now Schoyn Collection MS 1580, and the implications that the transcript may have for the provenance of the Rylands manuscript.

Questions whether PrT is an exercise in dramatic irony in which the Prioress's anti-Semitism is exposed to ridicule. The mother in PrT is called "this newe Rachel," but Rachel was a Jewish mother lamenting the massacre of Jewish babies by a Gentil…

Assesses Francis Thynne's references to the "Plowman's Tale" and the "Pilgrim's Tale" in the "Animadversions" on Speght's edition of Chaucer, concluding that no sixteenth-century printer tried to pass off the latter as Chaucer's. Although the…

Examines Chaucer's use of the dream-vision genre and authoritative texts and suggests that the author "deconstructs any sense of textual authority." The process of granting fame in HF parallels the random process of readers granting authority.

Analyzes how KnT and SqT engage with the Orientalist discourses buttressing contemporary humanist Italian discussions of visual art, especially in terms of the subjects of classicism and of optics.

Translates into Japanese both F and G versions of LGWP, based on the Riverside edition, with an introduction and notes in Japanese.

Translates ABC, Pity, Lady, Mars, Ven, Ros, Adam, Purse, Wom Unc, Compl d'Am, and MercB into Japanese, based on the Riverside edition, with an introduction and notes. In Japanese, with English abstract.

Contends that Chaucer's adaptation in HF of Virgil's "Aeneid" "anticipates his development away from medieval conventions toward modem, psychological people."

Reads the first three tales in CT as a gradated and "symmetrical" treatment of love that moves from the non-physical idealism of KnT to the mixture of emotion and action in MilT and on to the revenge and "physical realism" of RvT.

Compares the miracles in MLT with those in its source in Nicholas Trevet, arguing that by emphasizing emotion over religion Chaucer renders the narrative more powerful and humanistic.

Considers the imagery of transubstantiation and transformation in PardPT and in the GP description of the Pardoner. In traditional Christian terms, the Pardoner fails to use properly the things of the world for spiritual purposes; in terms of Jungian…

Reconsiders the role of the clerks' northern dialect in RvT as well as the Reeve's Norfolk dialect, paying particular attention to the fading of the former within the tale.