Browse Items (16376 total)

Explores the recursive demands of grammatical emendation ("emendatio") and penitential reform--the accumulative and ongoing need for correction of error that creates or prompts more need for correction--as the aesthetic that underlies Mel, and CT…

Argues that Malory downplayed his uses of the Stanzaic "Morte Arthur" and the Alliterative "Morte Arthure" in his "Le Morte Darthur" because the cultural prestige of native English romances was low--an attitude popularized by Chaucer in Th and…

Reads the prologue to Th (Prioress-Thopas Link) psychoanalytically as a comic enactment of the internal economy of the self in which the ego (Chaucer) absorbs the "attentions" of the superego (the Host) "so thoroughly as to arrest them" and deflect…

Includes discussion of "Chaucer's use of the bestiary to create his character of the Pardoner," relying on "the reader's association of animal features with morality to convey its meaning" and structuring PardPT to incorporate "the generic components…

Explores the implications of reading the Pardoner as a cross-dressing female, arguing that Chaucer leaves "her" characterization ambiguous, plays on "cultural associations of cross-dressing," and "legitimiz[es] the rhetorical power of female…

One-act play for eight child actors adapted from PardT, with Chaucer speaking directly to the Pardoner at the opening and closing of the plot. Production notes indicate a running time of approximately 20 minutes.

Points out thematic parallels between Hoccleve's "Male regle" and PardT, such as "riot and repentance" and "misreading" of "the material and the spiritual," and argues that Hoccleve succeeds in taking in Chaucerian literary resources to make his…

Argues "that in early modern England the primary theoretical models by which poets understood how language means what it means were applications of
eucharistic theology." Opens with discussion of PardT, SumT, and Pearl "in the context of the debate…

Includes discussion of how Chaucer "lays bare . . . [h]ow language and other signs may be adopted to obscure the patently obvious," arguing that the Pardoner's "constant insistence on corporeal language and imagery always returns the reader to the…

Includes discussion of "Chaucer's critique of the rhetoric of moderation in the speech of the Pardoner and the Friar John [in SumT] . . . , who attempted to assert their clerical superiority and cover up their gluttony by preaching moderation."

Includes a prose retelling of PardT entitled "Three Rioters: The Pardoner's Tale," which closes with a return to the "eternal journey" of the Old Man.

Examines the depiction of the Pardoner in PardT as a reflection of Chaucer's own ideas about spirituality. Contends that Chaucer's portraits of the religious pilgrims in GP showcase several types of spirituality and argues that the poet seems to…

Compares Chaucer's and Gower's versions of the story of Virginia, her rape, and death, remarking upon their various similarities and differences. Building upon that comparison, offers correctives for how a narrator might be used for old texts in…

Proposes a "theoretical conjunction" between "an ecological love for the non-identical and ethical theories of love for the neighbor," exploring in light of neighbor theory Dorigen's relationships in FranT with Arveragus, with Aurelius, and with the…

Examines the concept of intent and the illusion that is the marriage between Dorigen and Arveragus in order to argue that the message is one not of equality in marriage but of the happiness gained when the woman submits to her husband's authority.…

Traces the history and implications of the rhetorical analogy between the effects of "persistent speech" and water eroding or imprinting stone, from Ovid through medieval erotodidactic and religious writing to Boccaccio's Tale of Menedon and FranT,…

Looks at how SqT frames the East as stereotypically strange and familiar in order to explore the corrupting effects of "vitium curiositatis" (the vice of curiosity) and the beneficial possibilities of wonder. Argues that Chaucer embraces fragmented…

Reviews the scholarship concerning the bond between Canacee and the falcon in SqT and argues that this posthumanist bond "derives from their femaleness, which for the tale-teller transcends species in favor of a gendered sameness borne of similar…

With Albertanus of Brescia's "Liber de consolationis et consilii" as a common source, Mel and MerT both confront issues of counsel, gender, and lordship. MerT offers a skeptical, antifeminist, homosocial reassessment of the relatively optimistic…

Includes discussion of MerT that explains Chaucer's precision in using astronomical data for poetic purposes. Suggests that Chaucer used Alfonsine tables, and aligns the astronomical details and imagery of MerT with celestial events that occurred in…

Explores the implications of ascent and descent in MerT, focusing on the significance of the tale's vacillations between courtliness and the fabliau genre in comparison with several analogous narratives that include fruit-tree episodes. In French,…

Explores how the "unfulfilled outcomes" of characters who are possibly mothers or possibly pregnant in TC, MerT, Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well," and John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" "simultaneously enable author, character, and…

Argues that the "interpretive reading" underlying T. H. White's uses of William Twiti's "The Art of Hunting" as a source in "The Once and Future King" is similar to medieval rhetorical techniques of amplification. Exemplifies similar kinds of…

Explores medieval literary representations of clothing, nudity, and fashion. Includes discussion (pp. 160-63) of how the Wife of Bath's clothing indicates her "personality" and "the crisis of legibility in the fashion system in England"; reproduces…

Reads the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 as an inspiration for the relationship between textual authority, bibliophobia, and violence in WBPT. Compares Alisoun to rioters who destroyed writings they deemed threatened their personal rights. Argues that the…