Browse Items (16473 total)

By fitting merchants directly into his larger exploration of the relationship of sentence and solaas, Chaucer uses them to test the limits of the satiric form that dominated previous literary discussions of trade. Portraying merchants as consistently…

CkT illustrates what can happen to the urban household that opens its "pryvetee" to strangers who could damage the family and ruin its reputatiion in the community.

Discusses the progressive changes in versions of the Griselda story from Boccaccio's "Decameron" to ClT. Chaucer's poetic version, the culmination of these changes, reveals many of the problems in the original story.

Traces the classical and medieval sources (particularly Lucan and Boethius) of the ascent into the heavens of Arcita in Boccaccio's "Teseida," arguing that the author's efforts at historicizing classical attitudes are more than successful than…

Considers the theme of common profit in PF and Chaucer's treatment of source material, drawing examples from his uses of Dante and Boccaccio to evince that Chaucer is never an "arido tradittore" (dry translator) but an original poet.

RvT and ShT are related to Boccaccio's Decameron 9.6 and 8.1, respectively, not so much thematically as in their uses of source material. In particular, in its balance of comedy and moral teaching, ShT is closer to the general features of the…

In Japanese; accessible online at CiNii Articles [http://ci.nii.ac.jp/]. Abstract in Italian included in the back matter of the volume (pp. 3-4), under the title "L'Incontro del Chaucer e la Letteratura Italiana."

In Japanese; accessible online at CiNii Articles [http://ci.nii.ac.jp/]. Abstract in Italian included in the back matter of the volume (p. 1), under the title "L'Episodio Dantesco di Conte Ugolion in Chaucer."

Surveys the availability of manuscripts of John of Salisbury's "Policraticus" and allusions to this work among theologians, jurists, and political writers of the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. Comments on uses of the text by various…

Morabito attempts to provide the fullest bibliography possible for the diffusion of the Griselda story throughout Europe. Beginning in 1350 with the "Decameron," the bibliography is arranged chronologically for each of twenty-one languages.

Demonstrates the influence of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio on Chaucer and, in turn, on English literary tradition, employing an extended metaphor that equates Italian tradition with the town of Certaldo and English tradition with Canterbury.

After a survey of the reactions to Tolkien's article on the use of the northern dialect in RvT, Dor shows--on the basis of internal evidence--the geographical background of each pilgrim and the gradation in the process of Londonization.

Traces the history of the phrase "al be it" from its late-medieval "heyday" through its reduction to a single-word conjunction to its current status as a marker of "concessivity" or contradiction. Most medieval instances are cited from Chaucer.

Compares Bo with the versions by "Alfred," Walton (1410), Colville (1556), "I. T." (1609), and Preston (1695), tracing the assimilation of sophisticated Latin terminology into English discourse.

Includes several items on Chaucer.

Surveys words (e.g., "very") that shift from lexical to grammatical function. Includes several citations of Chaucer.

In HF, the description of Fame's hall raises questions about the status of classical authors. The poem as a whole reflects "Chaucer's struggle to find some place [. . .] for his individual talent in the mainstream of the Western and Mediterranean…

The Knight, in representing the gods, omits any reference to the castration of Saturn in order to justify the ascendancy of Jupiter, the authority of Theseus, and the political situation of the later fourteenth century, "a dark time in which…

Considers Spurgeon's work on the history of Chaucer criticism in the context of Spurgeon's career as a teacher and her role as a leader in seeking full standing for women in the academy.

Suggests a link between KnT and MkT: Saturn's "children" can be either individuals born under the sign of Saturn or societies suffering the effects of the "Age of Saturn." The predicament of the Monk's Hugelyn and his children can be read in light of…

Chaucer's use of thou and ye usually follows the standard pattern of his day. Some pronoun switching does appear, sometimes because of rhyme or textual variants but often because Chaucer uses a common formula, quotation, or other habitual lexical…

Includes several examples from Chaucer's prose writings.

In PrT, uncanniness and the eventual wounding of the clergeon are necessary to render the clergeon holy and Christlike. His experience is close to that represented in miracle plays exploring the Slaughter of the Innocents.

Analyzes the 125 instances of the modals "shall" and "will" in GP, KnT, and WBPT in their "syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects," gauging degrees of modality, contingency, futurity, grammaticalization, speech-act functions (e.g., prediction,…