Browse Items (16470 total)

Not all of Chaucer's religious tales are alike. In MLT and ClT, Chaucer "transforms the same basic material into two radically different, though equally valid, varieties of religious poetry." A religious romance, MLT "employs great rhetorical…

Robertson encourages feminist critics to confront "the complexities of the relationship between women and religion" in Chaucer's religious tales, for "what appear in these tales to be extremes of female suffering and violence against women are…

The "special quality" of MLT, ClT, PrT and SNT is their focus on spiritual transcendence rather than simply religious or moral values. All four tales "reveal exactly the same incandescent core of prayerful faith and spiritual aspiration presented…

Focusing on such critics as Thomas Lounsbury, E. Talbot Donaldson, D. W. Robertson, John Fleming, and Derek Pearsall, Georgianna suggests that twentieth-century scholars, like their sixteenth-century predecessor John Foxe, have constructed a…

Noting that MLT has often been apologized for or ignored, Edwards surveys critical approaches to the tale: the date of its composition, its place in the Canterbury sequence, source study, biography, narrative voice, the problem of Constance,…

Like MLT, SNT, ClT, and WBT, Mel employs a feminine style of persuasion. Prudence "demonstrates" the values she counsels her husband to abide by, thus adding actions to arguments as means of persuasion and subverting the male hierarchy. ParsT, by…

Between 1910 and 1952, attitudes toward ClT were overtly hostile. Since 1952, however, criticism has been "apologetic in nature," with teacher-critics constructing "Christian allegorical," philosophical, psychological, and political readings "to…

Chaucer's religious tales (Mel, ParsT, ClT, MLT, PrT, SNT, PhyT, MkT) are "predicated upon the assumption that the significance of human life is the transcending of its secular limitation through Christian faith." The only tales in CT not written in…

Although it is common to separate the religious message of ClT from the tale's portrayal of women and marriage, the two are "linked," with the juxtaposition of Griselda and Alison of Bath representing "opposite solutions to the problem of women's…

Examining both ecclesiastical and societal patriarchies, SNT addresses medieval concepts of power, authority, and autonomy. It places Cecilia's spiritual vision in the context of a broader secular and sacred order.

Through pathos, Chaucer evokes the audience's sympathy, thus transforming PrT, MLT, and ClT from mere tales of wonder or religious abstraction into convincing, dramatic treatments of the virtues they celebrate.

Unpacks allegorical aspects of "domus" (household, community, regulation, tradition, order) and "lingua" (speech, noise, murmuring, poetry, vernacularity) in Gower's "Vox clamantis" and in HF, using Fredric Jameson's notion of "national allegory" to…

Huxtable surveys medieval philosophical and religious understanding of sight and color as background to commentary on social concerns with color in sumptuary habits and heraldry. In ParsT 10.424-27, colorful clothing indicates a sinful nature.

The metaphor in Eph. 4:22-24 of putting off old clothes and donning new ones influenced the use of this image in PardT, "King Lear," "Gulliver's Travels," and "The Brothers Karamazov." As the Pardoner's alter ego and a representation of human…

Erotic film adaptation of CT; loosely adapted. Screenplay by Hyapatia Lee.

For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, of this volume.

Quantitative linguistic analysis of the erotic language in CT, charting and analyzing various forms of usage and usage by individual pilgrims.

Assesses Spenser's Duessa in light of WBT and its Middle English analogues, exploring how Spenser turned the Irish sovereignty motif against the Irish.

Compares Helinand's "Vers de la mort" with Chaucer's work and concludes that Chaucer is far more optimistic; he is a poet of life rather than death.

Examines Chaucer's literary exchanges with contemporary French writers, including his interest in "Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie." Offers
how Chaucer's translation of Rom confirms his fascination with the duchy's growing empire, where Picard…

Examines how Deschamps's balade 285 is a surprisingly generous recognition and glorification of Chaucer as a pioneering translator from Latin and French into English, and as an "illuminator" or enlightener of his native England. Reveals how this…

Challenges D.W. Robertson's approach to allegory and to the WBP, arguing that the medieval outlook was more flexible than Robertson asserted, more capable of varied attitudes toward present times, the historical past, the eschatological future, and…

In Chaucer's TC and Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," the actions focused on the lovers are remarkably alike in general contours and specific internal resonances, a resemblance which points to Chaucer as Shakespeare's source. Chaucer shows a…

Introduces a special issue dedicated to Shakespeare's references to Padua, summarizing the collected essays and addressing references to Padua in the Towneley mystery play ("Magnus Herodes") and in ClP (27). Suggests that Chaucer's linking of Padua…

Smith and Walker review the dramatic performance of CT (all but CYT), describing the staging and tracing the emotional swings of the adaptation. Includes one black-and-white and four color photographs of the production.