Browse Items (16472 total)

The quotation of Psalm 8 in PrP would have reminded Chaucer's audience of two Gospel narratives of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, one referring to singing children, the other to speaking stones. The power of this combined allusion links the clergeoun…

Alone among Chaucer's knights, Thopas receives a full costume description, but it defies readers' expectations of a top-to-toe effictio. Th also juxtaposes cheap and costly materials, mentions unattractive colors, and omits expected details, all for…

In NPT, Chaucer combines a learned, polysyllabic vocabulary with Anglo-Saxon, monosyllabic words. Shifts in vocabulary create the tale's mock-heroic tone, as a "drop" from Latinate to English words at the end of a passage undercuts the preceding…

The key rhyming pair place and grace appears several times in TC, notably at the center of the poem. Up to the moment of the lovers' consummation, both words have a positive, sometimes spiritual connotation and intensity, but after that passage each…

Argues that, "while Tennyson thought he was composing quantitative hendecasyllables, he was in fact producing accentual verse of a type that English poets had been studiously avoiding for 500 years." Traces the development of Chaucer's iambic…

Examines authorial use of commonly heard sayings (e.g., proverbs) as a means of incorporating listeners into the rhetorical community formed by the audience.

Elaborates on the distinction between "natura naturans" and "natura naturata" in relation to their Greek, Latin, and Germanic etymology, and examines uses of the words "nature" and "kynde" in BD, HF, PF, and Rom to show the tendency of each word's…

Examines the connotations of "man," "manly," and "manhood" and discusses concept of "real" manhood for these three authors.

In discussing Denise Giardina's novels set in Appalachia, offers observations regarding the effective portrayal of life in the mountains of the South, and compares this understanding to how the original language of Chaucer enhances the reading and…

Argues that the Hundred Years' War has been overemphasized as a moment in which war, identity, and language coalesced to form distinct English and French nations and vernaculars. Portrayals of France in the works of Chaucer and others are not…

Examines multilingualism in the Middle Ages, in particular its role in medieval literature, and focuses on merchants and their transportation of language as well as goods. Chapters 1 and 2 deal extensively with Chaucer's exposure to "London's many…

Pointing out the coexistence of various forms of negation in the Middle English period, the author analyzes choices of negative forms in Mel, ParsT, and Astr from cognitive viewpoints. The analysis particularly focuses on elaboration of styles (in…

Examines Chaucer's uses of the word namely and argues that, while it is widely assumed that the word functioned only as a particularizer in Chaucer's time, some cases do not exclude the possibility of another function as appositive marker.

Interprets the ideological content of "Mum and the Sothsegger" metaphorically by viewing it as advice on king's rule and social hierarchy. Refers to thematically relevant passages from CT and TC.

Assesses the significance of variant readings of think ("thinken" or "thenken") in SumT, line 2204, from several linguistic points of view, and emphasizes the semantic and syntactical differences between the impersonal and personal constructions.

Proposes that Th is not merely a parody of romance but is composed according to the principle of "progressive diminution," demonstrating its "prototype" and "extension" from geographical to temporal, social, to linguistic "domains."

Illustrates how the descriptions of nature in TC reflect main characters' cognitive processes as well as the development of love.

Contends that the uniqueness of Chaucer's poetry lies in the combination of emotive theme and manipulation of "tone." Classifies "tone-elevators" and compares their effects between different genres of Chaucerian texts as well as between Chaucerian…

Diachronic study of how the linguistic stress matches metrical strong positions in spoken poetry and songs of the Middle and early modern English periods, including discussion of Chaucer's works. Prominent mismatches are more frequent in earlier…

Lists forty-eight onomatopoeic words used by Chaucer. Examines some of these words' auditory, as well as visual, effects within their literary context. In Japanese.

Reflects on the term "object" in relation to whether it means a manuscript, circulating text, or real object; includes recurrent references to Chaucer and Chaucer scholarship.

Deconstructs the human/animal binary once useful in the emerging field of animal studies by casting anew these relationships into a "multiplicity of intersecting and competing distinctions that better reflect medieval ways of thinking." Through close…

Contemplates the queer potential of parody and other forms of "engaging multiple temporalities," commenting on two nineteenth-century responses to the "Book of John Mandeville" and on a fictional incident posted on Brantley Bryant's "Chaucer Hath a…

Considers Chaucer's uses of seafaring imagery in the course of a larger discussion of the uses of the sea as religious metaphor.

Explores the impact of medieval monastic culture on the evolution of sports, such as hockey, football and, in particular, tennis, including commentary on Chaucer's criticism of ecclesiastics engaged in sport. Argues that Chaucer's clerics reflect the…