Browse Items (16472 total)

Considers the ambivalent role of magic in FranT, arguing that vacillation "between belief and skepticism, truth and illusion, nature and sorcery" help Chaucer to create "a divide between perception and reality" and undermine the "purported moral…

Includes discussion of FranT as one among several examples of late medieval English romances that explore "noble identity and chivalric values" and use magic to place these values in starker relief than can be accomplished realistically.

Argues that as a mirror for princes Mel offers an "implicit critical view of Richard II," especially when read in the context of CT, which elsewhere provides a "complex analysis of advisers, advice, and the handling of counsel." Comments on the…

Shows that the "blered" eye image in CYT (7.730) and "Piers Plowman" indicates covetousness, associated with "unkynde" or unnatural separation from community and knowledge.

Studies the uses of allegory in western literature--classical, continental, and English, from Prudentius to George Herbert--with emphasis on growth and variety in the tradition, signals to allegory in the texts, and embedded uses of allegory as well…

Studies physical motion, readerly motion, and other motions related to texts in late medieval English literature, including a chapter on Chaucer's "engagement with motion as a concept in natural philosophy" in HF and PF, connecting it with the…

Describes the medieval understanding of "faculty psychology"--the three cells or ventricles where imagination, logic, and memory reside--and argues that HF "takes the audience" through the three ventricles, while exploring the creative potential of…

Using concepts derived from Roland Barthes, argues that PF is both a "text of pleasure with its reflection of courtly culture" and a "text of bliss with its unconcluded conclusion."

Explores Chaucer's idea of "gossip" in TC (and elsewhere), especially as it relates to literature and Criseyde's reputation, examining more extensively Henryson's emphasis on malice rather than idle speech and its relationship with "literary…

Translates TC into modern English rhyme royal stanzas, with footnotes and occasional marginal glosses. The introduction (by Christine Chism, pp. vi-xxx) addresses the social contexts of the poem; anachronisms; Chaucer's audience; the frontispiece…

Includes comments on Cassandra, Persephone, and Philomela as victims of "acquaintance rape" in Chaucer's works (TC, MerT, and LGW), treating his and other versions (classical, medieval, and modern) as adaptations of myths that create "metanarratives…

Art edition of selections from CT: GP, MilT, RvT, FrT, MerT, WBT, SumT, and PardT, with collage-like illustrations that combine imagery from medieval and modern sources,

Video recording of lecture (ca. 30 min.), with illustrations, accompanied by an edited text of the lecture in the Course Guidebook (pp. 31-36). Comments on details of the Wife's character in GP, WBP as an autobiography, the Wife's challenges to…

Audio recording of a lecture that aligns the achievements of Dante and Chaucer, focusing on their attention to individuals and uses of their vernacular languages. The discussion of CT emphasizes Chaucer's social variety as it contrasts traditional…

Surveys the impact on medieval poetry of Ovid as a love poet, including comments on Chaucer's use of "Ars amatoria" in WBP, where Ovid's "erotic poetics" are "domesticated" and the reception of his poem reaches its "zenith." Central to "Chaucerian…

Surveys texts by and about Ovid that Chaucer and Gower "might have used," arguing that the influence of Ovid was pervasive, complex, and crucial to the "careers and poetic self-fashioning" of both medieval poets, a model of poetic authority for them.…

Includes a lyric poem entitled "Chaucer's Valentine, for Nia," which opens by quoting lines 1–2 of PF.

A textbook history of the "phonological structure" of English, i.e., "the history of individual sounds and their representation, the history of syllable structure and word stress." The comprehensive Subject Index lists numerous references to Chaucer…

Comments on forerunners of ecocritical thinking in medieval literature, and explores the connotations of "green" (often in contrast with "blue") in Wom Unc, SqT, FrT, WBT, and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," arguing that medieval usage reflects a…

Includes twenty-six essays by individual authors that survey a range of issues in understanding the concept of "British literature" in the medieval period, considering history, politics, modes of production, literary forms, reception, religion,…

Explores how aspects of Chaucer's works reflect Britishness, Englishness, internationalism, and cosmopolitanism--a "potentially conflicted and unresolved matrix of possibilities" (p. 213). Identifies links and resonances between Chaucer's narratives…

Argues that Chaucer's works are "far more ambivalent and less polemical about revolt" than earlier texts or contemporary ones. Identifies changes in historical understanding of "revolution" as a concept, and examines MkT, where revolt is part of an…

Surveys the meanings, origins, and theories of courtly love, asking how it "works" in medieval texts, what light it can "cast upon medieval cultural practices, and why it comes to matter." Includes discussion of secrecy in TC, a text that animates…

Includes twelve essays by various authors on Middle English literature, and an introductory appreciation of A. V. C. (Carl) Schmidt, a list of his publications, and an index. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Truth is the Beste under…

Reviews the "extreme implausibility" of attributing the art of individual tales in CT to the pilgrim-narrators, and argues that the "ideas and arguments" of the tales belong to Chaucer. Also reviews the sequential order of the tales as found in the…