Browse Items (16479 total)

Examines human beings, nature, and poetic tropes in certain classical writers, in Dante, and in Chaucer's PF and TC.

In the earliest Troilus myths, Troilus is "not primarily a character but a 'function'": his murder early in the Trojan War is an "omen" of Troy's impending fall. In later works, Troilus's character is more fully developed, and his death--late in…

Summarizes the treatment and evolution of the Troilus myth from antiquity to the modern age, focusing on plot, the ending, and themes of love and death.

Thirteen essays on the development of the Troilus story from antiquity to the modern age, with emphasis on Chaucer and Shakespeare. For eleven essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for The European Tragedy of Troilus under Alternative Title.

Discusses links among eros, melancholia, and acedia as well as the tragic psychological dilemma of love in Petrarchan sonnets, Dante, and TC, especially in Chaucer's use of the Petrarchan sonnet "S'amor non e." The "oxymoronic essence" of TC allows…

Literature is both source and subject matter for Chaucer. In BD, PF, and HF, he transforms source material ("old books") into "new" Chaucerian texts with their own structures and themes.

HF, a turning point in Chaucer's career and in English literary culture, reflects attitudes toward fame and glory from Homer to the Scholastics to writers of the Italian "trecento." The poem deals with issues of fame, poetry, and linguistic theory…

Examines Chaucer's style, iconography, and adaptations from the "Teseida" in HF, Anel, TC, KnT, LGW, and FranT. Chaucer's method is metonymic; Boccaccio's is metaphorical.

Dante and Chaucer shared a common knowledge in the classics, medieval philosophy, and science. For HF, Chaucer drew on the "Purgatorio" and the "Paradiso" more than on the "Inferno." TC is Chaucer's equivalent of the "Divine Comedy" and the…

In HF, concerned with the nature of poetry, Chaucer reflects fourteenth-century culture, reveals his debts to Dante and Boccaccio (Lollius), and deals with literature.

Trans. Joan Krakover Hall as "English Medieval Narrative in the 13th and 14th Centuries" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

A detailed, tabulated comparison of tree-lists in Chaucer (Rom 1379-86, PF 176-82, KnT 2063-65) with those in his sources shows Chaucer becoming more familiar with a technical vocabulary, and more willing to adapt and augment his immediate sources…

Examines intertextual relations among the opening of TC 3, its sources in Boethius and Boccaccio, Dante's "Inferno," and Guido Guinizelli's canzone, "Al cor gentile rempaira sempre amore." Chaucer's modifications of his predecessors and Troilus's…

The cock of NPT, through correct Latin quotations and their English mistranslations, provides three literal interpretations of scripture.

Reads HF as an index to English literary culture of the late fourteenth century--as Chaucer's "idea of fourteenth-century literature." The variety of genres of the work, its complex relations with literary traditions, its concerns with science and…

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.

Uses the "chunnel" as a metaphor of the literary and cultural interconnections between England and the European continent,assessing classical and medieval influence on HF: Virgil, Ovid, and Claudian, along with medieval writers of Italy, France, and…

Studies of how Scriptural narratives and their themes have been "re-Scriptured" in particular works of Western literary tradition. Chapter 3 (pp. 77-100) explores how NPT prompts and resists the exegetical potential in reading and leads to…

Details the historical record of Chaucer's Italian connections and surveys the influence of Dante on English poetry from Chaucer to the twentieth century. Likens Dante's influence on English to a love story.

Assesses Chaucer's adaptations of his sources and his influences on later tradition, examining his uses of Dante in TC (Paolo and Francesca, idea of gentility, and Paradiso 33) and tracing the transformations of the characters of KnT (particularly…

Traces the knowledge and recognition of Boccaccio in English literary tradition from his obscured status as "Lollius" in Chaucer's TC to clearer acknowledgment in Lydgate and Dryden.

Boitani surveys Chaucer's "ongoing dialogue" with Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, discussing how Chaucer's borrowings reflect his "prodigious memory and striking associative and intertextual skill." Draws examples from PF, TC, KnT and ClT and…

Medieval vernacular literature, which inherits and deeply re-elaborates themes and modes of Latin culture, is at the origin of "European" literary production. Italy followed soon after France in establishing a vernacular literary tradition, anchored…

An extended examination of Boccaccio's "Teseida," Chaucer's KnT, and their relations. After describing "Teseida" and its debts to Dante and the classics, Boitani surveys Chaucer's uses of the work in Anel, PF, TC, and, more extensively, KnT.…

Describes the impact of Boccaccio's "Teseida" on Chaucer's works in Anel, PF, TC, and, especially, KnT, exploring Chaucer's adaptations, the later English adaptations of the story, and critical responses to Chaucer's uses of his source.