Browse Items (16473 total)

Argues that HF "shows a firm and symmetrical pattern" in its thematic and stylistic balancing of Book 1 and the house of Fame, on the one hand, and Book 2 and the house of Rumor on the other.

Since in his most carefully completed poems Chaucer avoids or undercuts any full thematic resolution, it is unlikely that the missing conclusion of HF would explain away the dynamic tensions of the poem. Probably the most inconsequential of the…

In the drawing of the Canterbury Pilgrims, Blake's antithetical method, employing ironic juxtaposition and counterpoint, invites the viewer to participate in the exercise of the Divine Vision of forgiveness by distinguishing "States from Individuals…

Stevenson interprets William Blake's depiction of the Canterbury pilgrims (rendered in several manifestations) in light of contemporaneous works and Blakes "Descriptive Catalogue" (1809). Visual symbols, juxtapositions, and contrasts indicate that…

Prose adaptations of GP, WBT, PardT, and CYT, designed for children, accompanied by brief Introduction, a biographical note, and illustrations by Dan Hubrich.

Suggests that interpretations of the Pardoner are overwrought, arguing that he acts "perfectly in the character given him by his creator" and that his somewhat troubling offer of relics to the Host is best understood as a joke.

Considers KnT alongside didactic texts of the period to clarify how chivalric loyalty controls and ties men together.

Argues that like "Guy of Warwick" and "Ywain and Gawain," KnT promotes "ideals of both prowess and lordship," with Chaucer emphasizing the ideals of "chivalric interdependence" and the bonds of "mutual loyalty."

Argues that Edmund Spenser's adaptations of SqT and "Amis and Amiloun" in Book IV of "The Faerie Queene" "[embody] his theory of friendship," both in the relations and interactions among the characters and in the ways that he asserts his own place in…

Examines "the paratextual, literary, historical, and physical ways print books serve as brokers of authority," including discussion of how William Caxton, in his editions of Chaucer, "inaugurates the printer as a necessary intermediary between the…

Examines psychological portrayals in TC, inner monologues, and audience response as compared to sources in Benoit, Guido, and Boccaccio. Compares Criseyde's inner monologues with Troilus's.

Although Chaucer does not divert from the pattern of Troilus's tragic fall from the top of the wheel of fortune, he employs ironic twists and ambiguities that diffuse the rigidity of the tale. The transitions in TC subvert attention from rigid…

The Host's phrase, addressed to the Physician, has the double sense of "learnedly" and "in rhetorical terminology," which is appropriate since in medieval doctrine rhetoric healed the mind as medicine healed the body. Chaucer would have known of the…

Surveys medical and historical writing as well as clerical interpretations of the bubonic plague. Treating literary representation of the plague as emblematic of ethical and societal cataclysm, Stieve considers the role of the plague in the writings…

Considers the Physician's misreading and misapplication of his source material (the Sermon on the Mount and Jean de Meun) to be key to proper understanding that he is "untrustworthy" and that PhyT reveals his lack of "spiritual sensitivity." Reads…

The mother-daughter bond appearing in medieval English poetry and hagiography is analyzed from a modern sociopsychological point of view, especially the surrogate mother-daughter, in which hags and crones advise young women. Deals briefly with WBT,…

Through courtly love, Boethian philosophy, and Godly intervention, Oedipal fantasies of Freud are played out in TC.

Chapter 2, "Civilization and Its Ambivalence," explores how Chaucer's rendering of Cressida has set the stage for all subsequent British and American portrayals of her.

Stillinger addresses intertextual and formal strategies used by Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer "in search of new ways to make a book." The "Vita nuova" explores structures in relation to authority in prose and verse, and "Filostrato" mines the…

Observing that threshold between the Wife of Bath and the Clerk and between their tales, Stillinger explores how Chaucer stands at the "threshold between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance" (224): "If the Clerk imports the new science of the…

Eleven essays by various authors. In his introduction, Stillinger characterizes Chaucer studies up to the 1980s as a great debate between New Criticism and exegetical criticism; he says that he selected the essays in the volume for the ways they go…

Following treatment of Peter Lombard, Dante, and Boccaccio, analyzes Troilus's two "cantici" (TC, bks. 1 and 5) for strategy, structure, and significance.

Examines the syntax, rhetoric, and emphases of GP 1.280 in comparison with similar locutions elsewhere in Chaucer (especially ShT) to argue that it means, emphatically, " If he [the Merchant] was in debt, the spectator would certainly never know it!"

Compares Mars with the "Ovide moralisé" and examines its adaptations of the "aubade, the complaint, the Valentine-tradition (Gower and Graunson), and the conventions of courtly love"--as inflected by Chaucer's own concerns and "personality," and…

Maintains that Chaucer indicates that there is a "single theme" in HF, arguing that "Distrust of worldly felicity . . . is Chaucer's 'o sentence'," and hypothesizing that the poem "was written for a New Year's entertainment." Cites several…