Browse Items (16364 total)

Chaucer's harpist, Glascurion (HF 1208), is Gwydion, son of Don. Various sound changes can account for Chaucer's "hearing" of Glascurion, suggesting a lost tale about Gwydion known to Chaucer and his audience.

Deterioration in the name Malkin, which came to mean "member of the lower classes, slut," can be paralleled by the Welsh "Mald."

The "Britoun book, written with Evaungiles," on which Constance's false accuser swears before being struck dead, is likely to have been a Latin gospel book illuminated in Celtic. Such a book (like the Gospel of Gildas) was said to have the power…

This line from PF has been taken to mean that the "stare" (magpie) divulges secrets, or betrays. However, "bewrye" can also mean "cover up," suggesting that the bird knows "how to keep a secret." Such a nuance could also apply to TC; Troilus's…

Used twice in Chaucer (1.391 and 1.3213), Middle English "falding" (like Welsh "ffaling") derives from Irish "fallaing."

"Kayrrud," the home of Arveragus in FranT, refers not to a "red fort," as Tatlock suggested (1914), but to "Kairiud," a fishing village "one mile east of Penmarch Head." Chaucer's knowledge of Middle Breton was more precise than commentators have…

Like Chaucer, the fourteenth-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym borrowed from Jean de Meun, using "Le Roman de la Rose" as the source for "Y Gwynt" ('The Wind'). Breeze notes sixteen motifs common to both poems and contrasts the Welsh poet's method…

For both linguistic and political reasons, the town in RvT from which John and Aleyn hail may be identified as Westruther in Berwickshire, making Chaucer's rendition of their speech "the first imitation of Scots dialect in English literature."

Explores the sources of several details and attitudes in poems by A. E. Housman, including discussion of the impact of KnT and TC on "A Shropshire Lad," particularly their depictions of love sickness ("amor heroes") and the ennobling effects of…

Lyric adaptation of the WBP 3.1-134 in Jamaican dialect.

Despite recurrent uncertainty, the location of "Bobbe-up-and-doun" mentioned in ManP is surely the same place as Harbledown.

In later medieval Latin and Middle English, Frisia had a negative reputation: "Frise" often means "Phrygia," while Latin "Phrygia" could mean "Frisia." Refutes the general acceptance of "Frise" (Rom 1093) as "Frisia" but accepts the usual…

Bremmer reviews the study of Chaucer undertaken late in life by the pioneering Dutch Anglo-Saxonist Franciscus Junius, as reflected mainly in copious marginalia in Junius's copy of Speght's 1598 edition of Chaucer's Works.

The alliterative phrase "here and houne," usually related to "hare and hound," may derive from an unattested OE formula meaning "the host and the household," an interpretation consistent with the context.

Surveys critical discussions of Chaucer's authorship of the "substantive" glosses that appear in his manuscripts, shows that the glosses to PrT 7.579-85 derive from Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" rather than from the liturgy of the Holy Innocents,…

Describes the influence of Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" on Chaucer, especially in FranT and WBP, and explains why the Pembrock MS 234, edited here, is "closer to Chaucer's source manuscript than any of the other" forty-two manuscripts considered…

Investigates "gendered metaphors of translation" in three late-medieval compilations of adaptations from Ovid's "Heroides"--LGW, Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and Bokenham's "Legendys of Hooly Wummen"--addressing them as "the authors' most overt…

Describes relations between structure and theme in TC, demonstrating how the poem's pattern of action and verbal parallels induce "classical symmetry" and function as a "metaphor of harmony and order, while an "underlying chaos" of "inverted…

At a memorial conference for Charlton Laird, a former student pays tribute to the late medievalist and Chaucer scholar.

Includes comments on how study of Chaucer's and Gower's Constance narratives have affected the study and understanding of Trevet's "Cronicles."

Assesses the "political and historical meaning" of Trevet's version of the story of Constance--"part of [the] longer world history" of his "Cronicles" and the occasion in it when idolatry is "reformulated as Islam." Includes occasional comments on…

Clarifies the ambiguities of nobility and "gentilesse" in Chaucer's era, and examines the presentation of them in CT, particularly in WBT, ClT, NPT, and FranT, arguing that the Franklin's views align with Chaucer's own, i.e., both view virtues…

Proposes that an error of transmission in Chaucer's source (Frère Renaud de Louens' "Livre de Mellibee et Prudence") accounts for the inaccurate claim in Mel: that Ovid says a weasel can slay a bull. The proposed error confuses Ovid's "viper"…

A study of unity in CT focuses upon justice and law. Commentaries available to Chaucer and his audience include the writings of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Sacred Scripture. Legal texts include Glanville, Bracton, Horn, and court records. …

Teachers and students need to address explicitly the relevance of literary discourses to cultural practices--an approach best cultivated in a dialogic environment.