Browse Items (16364 total)

Explores the affinities and "common sympathies" between William Langland and Chaucer, including their "Englishness," their views of religion and virtue, their shared sense of human variety, and the possibility that Chaucer may have read "Piers…

Facsimile edition of William Thynne's 1532 edition of Chaucer's "Works," accompanied by selected additional facsimile materials from the editions that followed (by John Stow and Thomas Speght), including apocryphal materials, hard-word lists,…

Compares WBT with its analogues to show that Chaucer's alterations of the plot "redefine such central concepts as 'honor' and 'sovereignty' in feminine terms," consistent with the gender of its teller. By emphasizing moral precept instead of…

Begins with a selection from Chaucer (pp. [i], 1-23) which includes Truth, Gent, GP 1-34 and 1.118-62 (Prioress), and NPT, accompanied by notes and glosses, and preceded by advice on Chaucer's English. Originally edited by Coffin in 1954.

Summarizes various problems in dealing with Chaucer's imagery, and examines the imagery in KnT and MilT. In both tales, images tend to "appear in clusters" and they are oftentimes linked in "iterative" patterns to reinforce theme. Considers animal…

Describes the features of FranT that affiliate it with the genre of the Breton lay (Breton lai) and those that make Chaucer's work unique. Considers the sources of FranT, and explore its aesthetic success as an "imitation" of the genre, including…

Designed as a textbook for study of the history of the English language; includes 24 samples of English prose and poetry, with facing-page translations and brief intoductions. Two selections from Chaucer's works: ABC (pp. 63-75) and Bo 1.prose 6…

Explores how and in what ways the "psychological realism" of BD is established and reinforced by the verbal and structural repetitions of the poem. Considers the nature of the dream, the view of love, and the interaction of the narrator and the…

Textbook edition of GP with end-of-text notes, glossary, and dictionary of proper names, accompanied by an Introduction that addresses the role of GP in CT, as well as its art and "Inheritance." Also includes several appendixes: "The Poet and His…

Comprises seven essays (three by Stevens; four by Hoy) that discuss eight portions of CT (GP, KnT, PrT and ClT, CYPT, FranT, PardPT, NPT), with brief notes, bibliography, and an index. Recurrent concern with unity, narrative skill, aesthetic order…

Argues that tensions within FranT indicate that Chaucer was subtly reinforcing the notion that male sovereignty in marriage is, realistically, advisable when combined with mutual trust and cooperation between the partners.

Reads the tone and details of PrT as consistent with the characterization of the Prioress established in GP. A "ful" large woman fixated on immaturity and smallness, the Prioress admires motherhood and empathizes with the innocence of the clergeon,…

Describes considerations of mutability from "Antiquity Through the Middle Ages" and then focuses on Chaucer's works, with individual sections that assess aspects of the theme in Chaucer's translations, his lyric poems, his dream visions, TC, KnT, and…

Argues that KnT is "mainly about" the tragedy of Arcite rather than the success of Palamon. The latter mistakes both the nature of Emelye and the rivalry of Arcite, who is a "worthier" man. Like Troilus, Arcite falls in fortune, and ultimately fails…

Suggests that Pandarus's phrase "ye haselwodes shaken" (TC 3.890) might be paraphrased as "you offer food to pigs."

Treats WBPT as an analogue to Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," observing shared "allusions, rhetorical formulas, [and] character presentations" as well as the theme of the "problems of marriage." The two works share "many common…

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…

Argues that Chaucer is "multivoiced" and a "realist par excellence" whose "verism . . . encompasses minor elements like obscenity and bawdry." Draws examples from TC and CT, WBPT most extensively.

Regards the detail of covering the child's eyes in MLT 2.840-41 as a "homely touch" of pathos, perhaps drawn from child-care advice found in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, "De Proprietatibus Rerum."

Contrasts the Wife of Bath's uses in WBP of the Pauline image of marital debt with commentaries found in St. Jerome and Thomas Aquinas, showing how she uses it to claim male debt only.

Facsimile reproduction of Greaves' grammar (1594), which was the second grammar of English to be printed; includes as an appendix a six-page "Vocabula Chauceriana," the first glossary of Chaucer's lexicon.

Identifies a French prose version (1882) of a West-African tale that is analogous to PardT and perhaps translated first from Arabic into Fula (Peuls) when Moslems entered the area.

Analyzes "rime riche" (identical rhyme) in Gower's poetry, focusing on the "abundance" of rime-riche couplets in "Confessio Amantis," and discussing a number of points of comparison and contrast with Chaucer's practice in his verse. Revised version:…

Describes and assesses Blake's understanding of Chaucer and his Canterbury pilgrims, and surmises (in Appendix A) that Blake used Tyrwhitt's edition of CT. Includes reproductions of Blake's engraving of Chaucer's Pilgrims and of Thomas Stothard's…

Reads KnT as an expression of the narrator's pessimistic yet stoic view of human "travails and uncertainties," evident in the prevailing "sense of the insignificance of the major actions" of the plot, and reinforced by grim humor and by the tension…