Browse Items (16364 total)

Distinguishes two kinds of medieval romance hero: those who "are defined by institutional virtues" and those defined by "personal attributes and experiences." Treats characters from various romances, examining Palamon, Arcite, and Theseus of KnT in…

Considers Chaucer's realism, seeking to define it "inductively" through close reading of GP, the links between the tales, and the "confessional monologues" of CT. Focuses on concrete descriptions, dialogue, and "haphazard organization and…

HF expresses the "unreliability" of authority, as evident in the "style and structure" of the poem. Defines "fame" as the "body of traditional information that confronted the educated fourteenth-century reader" and shows how and where HF manifests…

Classroom adaptations of selections from CT (GP, KnT, ClT, WBT, PardT, FranT, FrT, PhyT, and NPT), with a brief Introduction, questions for discussion, and a list of "new words." Reissued in 1987 with illustrations by Victor G. Ambrus.

Exemplifies the varieties and density of assonance in Chaucer's poetry, commenting on assonance in French, Italian, and English predecessors, and on Chaucer's uses of assonance in combination with other devices of sound and emphasis.

Item not seen; the note in WorldCat quotes the following: "This facsimile edition of Chaucer's Canterbury tales as printed by William Caxton is limited to 500 copies, of which this in number 280 ..."/ "The present facsimile reproduces for the first…

Provides historical evidence that females practiced medicine in medieval Europe, identifying several examples of their experience and tribulations, and presenting them as background to Chaucer's "Trotula" (WBP 3.677).

Characterizes late fourteenth-century England as an age of "crisis" and pursues a "style-and-culture" assessment of the poetry of the "Pearl"-poet, William Langland, and Chaucer, summarizing what is known (and not known) of each writer and reading…

Topographical and social history of late-medieval London and its environs, cast as a description of what a visitor might experience, enlivened by incidents drawn from legal and political records, and including descriptions of various political,…

A report of new projects, projects in progress, and membership of Chaucer Library Committee.

Suggests that Chaucer purges "sensuality" from Boccaccio's "Filostrato" when he adapts it as TC, and demonstrates in detail where the quality is consistently present in the Boccaccio's poem.

Reads ManT as an example of successful "characterization through narrative technique," assessing its paucity of actual storytelling relative to the amount of moralizing. This tedious moralizing is comic and results from Chaucer's adaptations of his…

Argues that Chaucer intended to complete SqT, evident in the fact that the Franklin's interruption is unjustified or inconsistent with the characterization of the Franklin in several ways.

Argues that Troilus' ascent to the eighth sphere (TC 5.1807-27) combines Christian and pagan elements--the classical pagan notion of immortality among the stars transmitted to Chaucer via Alain de Lille, Dante, and Boccaccio, and the Christian…

Treats the "psychological realism" and "moral allegory" in TC as complementary, analyzing the imagery and themes of ancient gods, the moon, and mutability, associated with Criseyde. Images of hell and torment in the final two books, differing from…

Interprets Pandarus's reference to "corones tweyne" (TC 2.1735) in light of lapidarian tradition, suggesting that it refers to the two kinds of "caraunius" (thunderstone), differently colored gemstones that emblematize Criseyde's beauty, lightning,…

Tallies similarities and differences in the characterizations of Palamon and Arcite in KnT, arguing that there is no way to resolve the "demande d'amour" that closes Part 1--"who is more worthy?" Theseus's rational decision making, the intervention…

Reads TC as a sinful poetic act, acknowledged as such by Chaucer in Ret (CT 10.1086). Passionate love and Christian love are "irreconcilable" in the poem, and from the Proem of Book 3 forward, Chaucer employs an "intensifying program of disguise" of…

Compares PhyT with its sources in Livy and the "Roman de la Rose" to argue that Chaucer's retelling characterizes the Physician as amoral, consistent with the GP description.

Argues that the Wife of Bath's reference to an incubus (3.880) is not an aggressive critique of the Friar's "deficient virility" as editors assume but instead a gentle and teasing jibe.

Tallies books and articles pertaining to Chaucer--ones in progress, completed, and/or published in 1971.

Rejects readings of MerT as "savage and mordant self-revelation" of the Merchant, characterizing the Merchant's wife as more similar to the Wife of Bath and the Host's Goodelief than to May. MerP is an extension of the Clerk's Envoy, the Merchant…

Argues that the Clerk's Envoy "generates a unifying theme which runs through" MerT--the possibilities of "perfection and imperfection in marriage, expressed as paradise and purgatory"--an echo of the concern with "purgatory" in WBPT. Explores the…

Tallies Chaucer's modifications of his sources in ManT, especially the digressions he adds, to show that the "subject of the tale is language." In his tale, the Manciple "sneers at" people who "can be distracted from empirical reality by language,"…

Assesses the Pardoner as a "puzzle" posed by Chaucer to challenge his audience to consider the relationship between morality and story-telling. The Pardoner's dazzling rhetoric, his relics, and the tensions between his immoral prologue and moral tale…