Browse Items (16475 total)

Explores the semantic operation of words drawn from the language of courtly love, following J. R. Frith's theory of linguistic context and collocation, and discussing examples from TC.

Adduces examples of formulaic phrasing, diction, and rhymes in fragment A of Rom as evidence of Chaucer's familiarity with native English literature; also shows where such evidence appears in his later works.

"Wenen," defined as "think" or "imagine" when referring to an anterior or contemporaneous event and "expect" or "intend" when referring to a posterior event, is most commonly used when the subject holds an erroneous conception. The counterfactual…

Traces the "growing versatility" of the "ubi sunt" motif in Middle English literature--its emotional impact, its relations with the theme of mutability, and its potential for expressing nostalgia--concluding with a comparison of Chaucer's uses of the…

Briefly surveys Chaucer's use of the medieval "art poetical," which he learned from his predecessors and realized in his own poems.

Explores nuances of select words in MilT (especially 1.3187-215).

At first lacking in "gentillesse," Aurelius knows how to insist u0pon his rights, but in the latter half of FranT, he is transformed into a gentle squire.

Chaucer frequently uses familiar words or phrases that at first seem insignificant or trivial; examined closely, however, they reflect unexpected humor. Chaucer excels at molding new science out of old books.

Discusses how "craft" is lexically related to the development of the story.

The narrator tells his tale from the social and political point of view.

Discusses the difference of treatment between PhyT and Gower's "Tale of Virginia."

Argues that the meaning of "swete" in PrT develops according to the protagonist's maturing process. In Japanese, with English abstract.

Applies a technique from evolutionary biology - phylogenetic "neighborhood-joining" - to the witnesses to the text of Astr to produce a stemma, test the fragments and sections of longer versions against the stemma, and discuss the scribal conflation…

Evidence from diagrams in the manuscripts of Astr suggests that the diagrams may have influenced construction of later extant medieval astrolabes, perhaps encouraged by Chaucer's "posthumous fame." Includes black-and-white and color illustrations.

The conflation of the fool with the devil in medieval representation reflected unstable boundaries between the witless man, who had the protection of the Church, and his imitator, the artificial fool. The Wakefield Satan, an artificial fool, is…

Shifts within the related fields of art history, literary history, and the study of illuminated manuscripts have led to greater emphasis on interdisciplinary scholarship; Chaucer studies (particularly those concerning the Ellesmere manuscript) are a…

High- and late-medieval tomb effigies show knights possessing muscular corporeality, a feature emphasized (through contrast with the Squire) in the GP portrait of the Knight.

The image of the merchant's wife waiting for him at the gate at the end of ShT (7.673-76) may be a reflection of a popular iconographic motif, the meeting of Anne and Joachim,parents of the Virgin Mary, at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem.

The garden encounter between Daun John and the merchant's wife is a parody on man's first sin in Eden. The three characters exhibit the sins of lechery, avarice, and vanity. The Monk parallels the tempter; the Wife, Eve; and the Merchant, Adam.

The Ellesmere miniatures recreate the word pictures by Chaucer in the text, but the only miniature that is truly lifelike is that of Chaucer himself.

Background for the ambivalent nature of Chauntecler in NPT.

Semantic associations, proverbial wisdom, and a coherent visual tradition establish the hood as a symbol of hypocrisy and sexual betrayal; this enriches the comic effect of Miller and Pardoner, of Pandarus and Criseyde.

Pre-Christian and Christian traditions connecting "gallus" and "deus" bear on NPT, especially hymns of Jerome and Prudentius, iconography, and popular equations of the cock with Christ in apocrypha, devotionals, folklore, and slang. As antagonist of…

Supports the so-called "Bradshaw Shift" that recommends moving fragment VII of CT to a position just after fragment II, arguing that the move better enhances the "thematic relationship among" ShT, and the fabliaux of fragment I, MilT, and RvT.

Yang considers several aspects of translation and the rhetoric of translation in TC: the narrator's "double role" as translator and author, Pandarus as translator, Diomede as a "force of the translation process," Criseyde as "text" that is…