Browse Items (16472 total)

Opens with a consideration of Wyatt's relation to the "Chaucerian tradition" of Ovid in English.

Johnston discusses the treatment of political concerns in PF and Clanvowe's "Book of Cupid." PF defuses the political conflicts it conjures up through a conscious policy of aesthetic deferral, whereas the "Book of Cupid" openly shows the violence…

Considers late medieval miscellanea and the "sensibility of the miscellaneous," using the concept of "heterarchy," and assessing Nicholas of Lyre's discussion of the Psalter, the :Biblically licensed diversity" of CT (evident in ParsT, Ret, and…

Continuation of SAC annual annotated bibliography (since 1975); based on contributions from an international bibliographic team, independent research, and MLA Bibliography listings. 337 items, plus listing of reviews for 77 books. Includes an author…

Examines the related topoi of the man in foul clothing and the wedding guest with no robe as they are depicted in "Cleanness," "St. Erkenwald," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Julian of Norwich's "The Showings," and CYPT, arguing that the texts confront…

Describes Chaucer responsibilities as a justice of the peace from 1385 to 1389, particularly "the enforcement of highly controversial labor regulations," and explores how the "trope of poet as accused laborer" in LGWP suggests his concerns about such…

Describes and analyzes a deed of property conveyance indicative of the complex relations and interactions among Thomas Chaucer, Richard Wyot, William Paston, Sir John Fastolf, John, duke of Bedford, and others. Compares Thomas Chaucer's appended seal…

Differences between eschatological and historical time in TC pose parallel differences between Troilus's personal Boethian tragedy and the epic tragedy of the fall of Troy. Similarities between Criseyde and analogous women in other siege stories (in…

Burger explores how MerT scrutinizes developments in class and gender identities and valuations of marital love and subjectivity that grew out of twelfth-century Gregorian Reform. In direct contrast to WBPT (and in response to ClT), the Merchant…

Surveys the "traditions of preaching theory that Chaucer drew on in creating his Parson and Pardoner," focusing on the preacher's paradoxical "persona," the relationship between the "person" and the "office," and the use of the physical body in the…

A nationalistic fantasy of legal sovereignty underlies MLT and its depiction of England in relation to Rome through the figure of Constance. Anxiously embracing the geographic and forensic marginality of England, "Chaucer's lawyer exhibits a version…

Constructs a model for the reception of Gower's "Confessio Amantis" that accommodates its combination of English, marginal Latin glosses, and very difficult Latin prefatory verses. Clerk-prelectors probably studied the work before performing…

Proposes a Wittgensteinian approach to Chaucer's language that eschews the inherent limitations of linguistic description and stylistic analysis. The poet's works are about language.

Hanna encourages more refined analysis of Chaucer's lexical practice, especially examination of patterns of choices between English and French synonyms.

Challenging suggestions that individuals like Chaucer are agents of linguistic change, Machan argues that they cannot foresee history and therefore cannot work to a future end. The article surveys political factors in late-medieval English linguistic…

Encourages more thorough integration of Chaucer studies and Middle English studies, exemplifying the potential by examining the "pragmatic dimension" of "curteisly" in RvT (1.3997) and suggesting that John and Aleyn's use of low-prestige dialect may…

Sociohistorical commentary on the rise of prestige markers in English writing and speech, focusing on accent as a marker in Chaucer's time and soon after, in particular the pronunciation of final -e, the Great Vowel Shift, and northern dialect…

Trigg explores how efforts to introduce philology and recent challenges to canonicity complicate Chaucer pedagogy and its relations with the teaching of other medieval authors, contemplating questions of Chaucer's continuing appeal despite these…

Continuation of SAC annual annotated bibliography (since 1975); based on contributions from an international bibliographic team, independent research, and MLA Bibliography listings. 399 items, plus listing of reviews for 84 books. Includes an author…

ManT asserts a "repressive poetics" that challenges fiction-making in CT--especially in KnT--and at the same time rejects the validity of penitential self-examination offered by the Parson.

Explores the semantic and cultural background of the word "elvysshe" as applied to alchemy in CYT (8.751, 8.842). Like elves, alchemists were secretive, elusive, liminal figures, distrusted and associated with transformation. Though modern editors…

ManT and the depiction of the Manciple reflect Chaucer's effort to undermine bourgeois threats to court culture, his critique of practical "wit," and, simultaneously, his affirmation of the destructive power of adultery.

Considers the acceptance of "spousal homicide" in ManT and the "perfunctory dismissal" of the Tale in ParsP, arguing that the shift from legal to penitential concerns eludes indictment for the murder.

Psychoanalytic analysis of ManT as "an example of a narrator's strenuously repressing the maternal yet subliminally negotiating its inevitable return." Various features of the Tale are projections of infantile "primal" relations with the mother:…

. ManPT set in opposition two kinds of homosociability: friendship and service. The irresolution of the opposition reflects Chaucer's anxieties about his status as servant and poet.