Browse Items (16472 total)

Introduces a special issue on manuscript studies and history of the book in relation to critical theory; also, summarizes the issue's articles. Discusses CT, TC, and Th.

Explores how the presentation of texts, as well as the reader's response to them, might be influenced by new textual forms, focusing on the manuscript (MS Glasgow University Library, Hunter 197), printed (William Thynne's edition), and electronic…

Analyzes woodcut of pilgrims seated at table in Caxton's second edition of CT. Argues that "early editors' interpretations of given literary works are thus reflected in their editorial choices."

Analyzes Chaucer and Wittenwiler from the "perspective of anxiety at the table." Explores how "food- and drink-conveyed class anxieties are used as plot devices" to develop action in MlT, RvT, and "Der Ring." Also mentions possible connections…

Foreward by Derek Pearsall. Essays address issues of packaging, presentation, and consumption of manuscripts. Also discusses producers, owners, and readers of manuscripts and early printed books. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for…

Explores the argument that the lack of Chaucerian presentation miniatures suggests that Chaucer did not write for wealthy patrons. Identifies the first presentation miniature in an English-language manuscript as the 1409 incipit image in John…

Interdisciplinary anthology focusing on interplay of social and political interactions and medieval French and English illuminated manuscripts produced between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. For one essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for…

Focusing on the MerE-SqH, argues that what has been seen as evidence of authorial revision in the manuscripts may simply be reflecting problem areas encountered by the scribes, including problems in accessing exemplars and linking passages, which…

Comprehensive study of scribes from the London Guildhall responsible for copying Chaucer's earliest manuscripts, including Adam Pinkhurst, Guildhall scrivener from 1378-1410.

Compares Chaucer's and Hoccleve's manuscripts in terms of authorial control, contrasting the "muddle of disparate exemplars" of CT with Hoccleve's detailed attention to format. Specifically contrasts Hoccleve's "mid-stanza paraph" in his autograph…

Examines what is lost when we look at a digitized manuscript instead of the material book, which invokes the senses of touch, smell, and taste and the habits of the medieval reader. Mentions the graphic tail-rhyme in Th as a type of habit that…

Applying ANOVA/Tukey's Range Test on nine early CT manuscripts, the author finds that none of them is based on exemplars written in more than three hands. Attributes the final ordering in the first manuscripts of CT to "the poem's first two scribes,…

Eleven essays about Chaucer and his works that form, in the words of its editors, a "general" rather than a "thematically unified" collection. Threads that run through multiple chapters include rhetoric, ethics, and poetic form. For individual…

Examines the significance of William Morris' direct engagement with Chaucer's works. The illustrations and intricate frames of his Kelmscott Chaucer are complex and communicative, serving as creatively productive interruptions to the act of reading.

Examines "afterlives" of Chaucer created by post-medieval scholars using digital tools. Argues for attention to digital engagements with Chaucer, such as "Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog," as having significant existences separate from a historical…

Questions the idea that Chaucer's relationship with the alliterative verse of his contemporaries, such as the "Gawain"-poet and Langland, was antagonistic. Instead, suggests that the alliterative and the London poets participate in a shared metrical…

Examines Chaucer's use of sun-king imagery and references to Apollo in a variety of works. Compiles historical connections among Chaucer's allusions and Richard II and other political figures' iconography, suggesting a multivalent portrayal of…

Argues for an "ethical" reading of Chaucer's view of poetry in CT distinct from didacticism, examining Chaucer's engagement with sententiae of Plato and St. Paul and suggesting that, for Chaucer, poetry's value is in the process of interpretation it…

Notes that counterfeit and forged documents appear frequently in CT, but most frequently in exemplary and ethical tales such as MLT and ClT. This suggests Chaucer's lack of trust in this kind of writing and his preference for an ethics based on…

Explores the use of the phrase "good fellow" as it is used in Martin Scorsese's film, "Goodfellas," Clanvowe's Lollard treatise, "The Two Ways," and FrT.

Considers the relationship between the Wife of Bath and the Clerk, focusing on their shared approach to self-presentation through the words of other writers and their interrelationship as speakers. Highlights the Wife's use of clerical authority and…

Discusses the relationship between the Prioress's "empty" rhetoric, audience reception, and emphatically feminine representation. The Prioress, in this reading, is a kind of false prophet, more dangerous than the Pardoner who plays a similar role.

Looks at Chaucer's use of "two sententiae" to explore the interplay between Chaucer's use of silences and pauses in PrT, and the reader's engagement with the story.

Enters the discussion about apparent temporal discrepancies in PF and reframes it with a reminder that the poem occurs in a dream vision, and need not correspond literally to English weather and bird behavior. Embraces contradictory references to…

Examines influence of commerce and trade in CT, Gower's "Mirour de L'Omme" and "Confessio Amantis," and Hoccleve's "Male Regle" and "Regiment of Princes." Looks at social and cultural implications of how market economies affect literary narratives…