Browse Items (16472 total)

A discursive lexicon of "dirty" language, sexual and scatological, including a brief section (pp. 8-14) on Chaucer's vocabulary, listing sample words and describing several scenes and examples from MilT, WBP, and elsewhere. Reprinted under the title…

Considers Shakespeare's Cressida to be a "delicate literary graft" of the ambiguous aloofness of Chaucer's Criseyde and the "frankness personified" of Henryson's Cresseid.

Compares editorial decisions from a linguistic perspective in Thomas Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's works with Andro Hart's Middle Scots 1616 edition of John Barbour's "Brus" to assess the perception of the intelligibility of Middle Scots and its…

Reads the relationship between the formel and Nature in PF in light of late medieval practices of wardship, informed by attention to "yerde" as an emblem of authority. Comments on the formel's decision not to marry and on parallels between the formel…

Reads the figure of Alceste in LGW as a "fable" of female patronage, and argues that texts such as John Metham's "Amoryus and Cleopes" and an anonymous English translation of a portion of Boccaccio's "De Mulieribus Claris" do not follow Chaucer's (or…

Looks at the public aspect of devotional poetry, referring to Chaucer and PF.

HF seems a transitional and occasional poem but is unfinished and experimental, under contemporary Italian literary influence.

Examines Chaucer's new attempt at the development of narrative in HF and his imaginative uses of classical and contemporary Italian sources.

Ikegami analyzes in OE and ME literature formal problems of verse and prose, narratives, manuscripts and incunabula, Latin and vernaculars, to explain the differences between medieval and modern English literature.

Examines the source of ParsT and concludes that the Tale was strongly influenced by Frere Laurent's "Summe le Roy" (1279).

Explores why the Parson is neither a rector nor a parish priest, examining historical contexts and speculating about Chaucer's intentions, especially as they relate to backgrounds to the "Summa de poenitentia."

Lines argues that the idealized chivalric homosocial bonding in Surrey's poem was influenced by KnT. Eulogizing the Duke of Richmond in this way critiques the debased version of political bonds in the court of Henry VIII.

Steinberg examines differences between depictions of Nature in Spenser's Mutabilitie Cantos and in Chaucer's PF. For Spenser, disorder inheres in nature, while in Chaucer it results from human "pettiness and passion." Such differences remind us of…

Fire imagery and the theme of order in Dryden's adaptations of Homer, Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer (KnT, WBT, NPT, and Parson) evince that his "Fables" centers thematically on "natural order characterized by the paradox of constant change."

Explores comic allusions in John Gay's pastorals "The Shepherd's Week" and "Trivia," along the way identifying "several allusions" to Chaucer's work in "The Shepherd's Week"--allusions to the Wife of Bath's red stockings, the use of "queynte" and the…

Explores More's likely knowledge of Chaucer by examining the former's references and allusions to Chaucer, his quotations of the earlier poet, and their uses of similar proverbs.

Bakhtinian analysis of allusions in The Faerie Queene, including the allusions to PF-particularly the catalog of trees.

Arguing that the sequence of tales in Dryden's "Fables" is significant and meaningful, Gelineau examines a sequence of tales in which Dryden "uses the Chaucerian tales, with their Catholic love of order, to frame his critique of military brutality…

Explains how written correspondence between Arthur Hugh Clough and Francis James Child--recurrently concerned with metrical and linguistic issues--reveals influence of Clough on Child's "Observations on the Language of Chaucer"(1862); Clough's…

Assesses the Franklin as a "hybrid and mimic who is caught in between the medieval acknowledged identities of the commoners and the nobility," striving upward, and searching for "for a recognisable identity" in his changing medieval society. Includes…

Explores the rebelliousness and animal imagery associated with the GP Miller and Symkyn of RvT, the in-between social status of medieval millers, and depictions of millers in accounts of the Revolt of 1381, arguing that medieval millers were depicted…

Hurst argues that Shakespeare's Cressida is an "embryonic feminist"; Cressida compares favorably with Chaucer's Criseyde, who was elsewhere demeaned in subsequent accounts.

Reads Theseus as a uniquely dynamic character in KnT and in CT more generally--able to "change over time in response to experience." In the course of the Tale, Theseus achieves some of the detachment and insight that characterize the Knight.

Assesses "The Assembly of Ladies" in light of several Chaucerian techniques, particularly his use of a disarming narrative persona. The relatively straightforward female narrative persona of "Assembly" is unlike the narrator of LGW, although both…

Proposes that "fade" is an "Anglicized form of Occitan "fado"/"fada" and therefore further evidence that the "Gawain" or "Pearl" Poet served in Aquitaine, associated with military and/or diplomatic exploits, as did Chaucer. Proposes several possible…