Browse Items (16474 total)

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,…

Although the SqT draws on missionary accounts of Mongol culture in which religion and magic, the "holy" and the "unholy," are seen as confused, the Tale itself treats magic as something manmade, a technological marvel, eliciting admiration and…

Traces the role of the verbs "mot-," "shul," "oughte," and "willen" in defining the relations and motivations of Walter and Griselda, to demonstrate how "the contextualization of the linguistic construction of identity relative to the individual's…

Describes the transmission of WBT, through John Dryden's modernized English version in "Fables: Ancient and Modern" and Voltaire's French in "Ce qui plait aux dames" to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's Polish "Co sie damom podoba" in "Pisma rózne wierszem…

BD contains analogies within analogies and poems within poems. The poem's subject is the mental movement from figure to embedded figure. The redemption offered in the poem is "the salvation that is opened within the mind as it recedes into…

Traditions of simultaneous affirmation and negation found in pseudo-Dionysian mystical theology account for Ret's treatment of the reader and its relation to CT.

Chaucer's Saint Cecilia and Greene's Sarah Miles are both perceived as rude, disrespectful, and unbelievable. Their behavior and narratives can be appreciated only in the context of the hagiographical tradition.

Analyzes the Canacee episode in SqT through "poetic and biblical exegesis" and compares it to similar materials in Malory's "Morte Darthur."

Demonstrates "the extremely close dove-tailing of the three major sections" of BD "and the way in which they complement and illuminate one another" through parallel incidents and atmosphere. Then examines "the imagery patterns in the poem" to show…

Argues that medieval connections between stories of the sieges of Thebes and of Troy make the reference to Thebes at TC 2.83-84 a "masterstroke of supreme irony": directed at both Criseyde and Pandarus, the irony complicates aspects of predestination…

Explores Ret, the ending of TC, the claims of accurate reporting in GP 1.730-43, and Chaucer's comments on poetry and the rhetorical arts in HF, LGW, and PF, arguing that Chaucer's "seems to have conceived of the poet" as a "moral realist" who writes…

Comments on the varieties of love in PF, describing how the initiating concern with heavenly love in the summary of Scipio's dream is recalled and reinforced through the structure and details of the poem, conveying the need for "caritas," "common…

Comments on the Host's "outrage" and the "silence" of the other pilgrims at the end of PardT, attributing them both to failure to "separate art from reality."

Considers Chaucer's "references to time" in TC in light of parallel passages in Boccaccio's "Filostrato," considering variants in TC manuscripts and arguing that Chaucer's concern with time in the poem results from his "desire to portray Criseyde as…

Identifies nine aphoristic statements in NPT and assesses the extent to which they can be considered the "moralite" referred to by the narrator in 7.3440. Considers analogous fables and claims that Chaucer's version demonstrates "a common Chaucerian…

Argues that Dorigen's lament is "not necessarily Christian," derived as it is from Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "spiced with reminiscences" of Ovid's "Metamorphoses." Reads the lament as "completely consonant with what Chaucer regarded…

Argues that BD is not a traditional consolation but rather a "poetic monument in honor of Blanche." The poem's narrator is "singularly unfitted for the role of comforter" and inconsistent with the poet's own self-consciousness as an artist.

Like his French predecessors, Chaucer employs a commonplace detail and dialogue to impart to his fabliaux a sense of domestic, small town, and rural life. However, while unity in design and treatment characterize the French fabliaux, Chaucer's are…

The repeated rhymes "trouthe"/"routhe," "serve"/"disserve," and "mente"/"entente" accentuate the poem's development. The first two pairs underscore the perversion of "fin amours." Troilus asks for his lady's "routhe" in exchange for his "trouthe,"…

Line 7.3217--"By heigh ymaginacioun forncast"--means not that the fox's attack was predestined, or foretold in the cock's dream, but that the fox had carefully planned his act of high treason against the royal Chauntecleer.

Chaucer builds his descriptions of the pilgrims according to the traditional catalogue plan of the accumulation of details. But he breaks with tradition in drawing details of a portrait from differing angles, thereby surprising his reader and…

Similarities in the career of Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, Ireland, and Chaucer's Alice suggest that the case against the former may have influenced Chaucer's portrait. Alice Kyteler was married four times and was accused of carnal relations with a…

After discussing various readings for the phrase, "In termes hadde he cas and doomes alle..." (GP 323), Wentersdorf argues that "term" is equivalent to a court session: thus, when courts were in session, this man of law had at his disposal all the…

Argues that the phrase "slydynge of corage" used to characterize Criseyde's moral character refers to "infirmity of resolve" but also involves unstable affections.

As seen in GP, the formal method of characterization is rooted in Cicero, Priscian, and Matthew of Vendome. The physical repugnance of the Summoner symbolizes moral ugliness.