Browse Items (16472 total)

Assesses the modifications of Boccaccio's tale of Griselda (Decameron 10.10) in the translations of Petrarch and Chaucer, focusing on the uses and nuances of the verb "provare" (to prove) and its associations with "probus" (good). In ClT, Chaucer's…

In HF, the Eagle is a shamanistic guide; the labyrinthine House of Rumor, a shamanistic symbol.

Argues that scribe John Duxworth, rather than his patron Jean d'Angoulême, was the guiding intelligence behind the execution of the Paris manuscript of CT (Ps) and that his revisions and errors are consistent with the habits of other scribes who…

Tabulates late-medieval uses of ought (owe) as a past form and as a modal auxiliary and explores the forms of infinitives used after ought. Compares Chaucer's uses with those of other late-medieval writers to show that his uses reflect the "unsettled…

Surveys medieval representations and understandings of the psaltery, a musical instrument, as background to reading its meanings in MilT. The psaltery clashes ironically with Nicholas's amorous escapades, and his playing it to accompany his singing…

Examines how narrative and sententiousness interact in The Physician's Tale and The Manciple's Tale as examples of Chaucer's explorations of the nature of this interaction. PhyT is a "story in search of a moral," while ManT is a "collection of…

Offers a historicized, "iconological," Great Texts approach to CT, reading the poem as a "staged retelling of many tales, old and new" that is thereby "particularly pertinent for the larger rationale of a Great Texts curriculum." Traces two thematic…

Custance's earnest belief in a Christian deity is reflected in her prayers, while the narrator of MLT presents these prayers in the context of his own skeptical rhetorical questions. The tension between the two establishes the dialogic polyphony of…

Critiques the inconsistencies and overall lack of unity in CT, contrasting it with the structural and thematic wholeness of HF and TC, and castigating the sententiousness of Mel, ParsT, and Ret. Attributes the lack of unity and the inconclusiveness…

Marvin traces a pattern of concern with literary interpretation in LGWP-F and exemplifies that the pattern is also evident in "some of the legends themselves," particularly Dido's. The F prologue and the tale assert bookish authority, question it,…

Epstein argues for a nuanced understanding of money in SumT, reading its significations in light of the thirteenth-century Franciscan treatise "Sacrum commercium," medieval commercial practice, and deliberations on quality and quantity among the…

Camargo details how the Pardoner "pointedly rejects every tenet" of moral instruction found in chapter 1 of Waleys's "De modo componendi sermones" and shows how the treatise discloses flaws in the Pardoner's rhetorical techniques. The Pardoner "may…

Fumo reads Criseyde as someone "who does not believe in love" and perhaps "does not believe at all," a representation of fourteenth-century epistemological concerns "reanimated in the context of a Petrarchan psychology of enamourment." Criseyde's…

Reads "goter, by a pryve wente" (TC 3.787) literally--a passageway that passes a latrine--and comments on the poetic functions of Troilus's approaching Criseyde's bedroom by this means. The passage characterizes Pandarus's house as up-to-date and…

Argues that manuscripts ignored by editors "often deserve far more than the total neglect" they receive, drawing examples from manuscripts of Chaucer and Langland, including a number of cruces from manuscripts of Chaucer's CT and TC. Comments on…

Latin-English glosses from BL MS Add. 37075 and other hitherto unpublished sources throw light on attitudes toward words for sex, body parts, and body functions as used by Chaucer and Scottish Chaucerians.

The truncated nature of CT challenged Chaucer's followers. Casting Chaucer in the role of Laius, Lydgate's "Siege of Thebes," in imitation of Chaucer, was designed as the first tale of the homeward journey as counterpart to KnT, in high style though…

Plummer explores sexual references and innuendoes in the speeches of the Host, arguing that sexual and textual power are inseparable for the Host. The Parson's concern with spiritual productivity balances the Host's concern with physical generation,…

Rogers and Dower review considerations of money and its circulation in ShT, questioning whether Chaucer praises or blames money or whether the topic was as mixed for him as it is today.

Late-medieval preoccupation with mortality defies the solace of fiction. PhyT and PardT offer no hope of physical or spiritual life, and ParsT kills storytelling.

In light of Cicero's "De amicitia," the noble friendship between Troilus and Pandarus helps to elevate TC to a great tragedy.

Palmer argues that LGW is not merely a collection of tales retold from Ovid; it is also the story of the narrator's problematic relationship to the God of Love.

The Anglo-French duality of Chaucer's literary roots underlies the complexity of his representations of the self and others. In this light, HF should likely be dated later than it traditionally is.

Fleming examines Chaucer's mixture of sacred and secular texts and illustrates how Chaucer's idea of the Wife of Bath grew from an amalgamation of Le Roman de la Rose, Ovid, and St. Jerome, particularly in WBP.

Surveys the evolution of critical appropriations and pictorial representations of Chaucer from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries, suggesting that oversimplifications of Chaucer recur because he is so deeply concerned with the generative…