Browse Items (16364 total)

A summary of the text published in Limoges.

Praises E. Talbot Donaldson as a great textual scholar, using TC to explain Donaldson's ideas on rhyme and meter and discussing the final -"e" and the five-stress verse. The reliability of scribes is examined.

A collection of Brewer's previously published articles which discuss Chaucer's relationships to the "literary culture of his own times and to our present attitudes." For one new essay, "The Archaic and the Modern," search Tradition and Innovation…

Emends three readings of the Corpus ms. of TC (1.502, 1.458, 1.89) and notes that evidence does not support the theory of extensive authorial revisions.

Underlying many traditional stories is the basic structure of the individual emerging into adulthood and establishing his or her identity by destroying parent-images and finding a beloved equal. A chapter on Chaucer establishes his equivocal and…

The significance of the known facts about Chaucer's life is elucidated in the context of the political, social, intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic background. The volume is handsomely illustrated, and includes readings of Chaucer's works.

Recognition of the arming of the warrior "topos" guides us to many formal arming passages: in the Babylonian epic, the "Iliad," The Bible, the "Aeneid," Irish literature, "Beowulf," the "Chanson de Roland," "Erec et Enide," the Arthurian series,…

Characterizes several differences between the archaic (prescientific) and modern mindsets: literal vs. relative, oral vs. literate, mythic vs. scientific. Includes a brief discussion of Chaucer's mixture of the two.

Surveys views on sex and marriage in Chaucer's works and argues that his fabliaux reflect human desires to escape from and to re-create the couple. The brevity of the fabliau limits the possibilities of readers' identification with the characters…

Like Peter of Cyprus, celebrated in Machaut's "Prise," Chaucer's Knight is a hero, his lists of battles showing him to be a Crusader-knight virtuous in devotion to duty. Chaucer deemed the knightly ideal possible in his contemporary world.

Examines arithmetic aspects of Chaucer's poetry in an effort to understand the mind of the man. The arithmetic devices of RvT, ShT, SumT, etc. indicate the strong vein of "modernistic rationalism" in Chaucer, a distinctive feature of his mentality.

Critiques approaches to TC that separate the narrator of the poem from Chaucer, briefly tracing modern ideas of character and irony from Kittredge to Donaldson and Muscatine, and on to deconstruction and feminism. New Critics and their descendants…

Surveys the reception of Chaucer reflected in translations by Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Pope, and Wordsworth, viewing it as the beginning of modern criticism, of the modern idea of a national literature, of modern textual criticism, and of modern…

According to Chaucer's conception of "manhood," as distinct from the somewhat anachronistic term "masculinity," Troilus is to be seen as "manly" and virtuous in his behavior, as well as worthy of the reader's sympathy. He is an "idealized and…

A "radical revision" (xi) of Brewer's 1984 "Introduction to Chaucer" (SAC 8 [1986], no. 55a); like its predecessor, a general introduction intended for specialists and first-time readers of Chaucer alike. Carried over from the first edition, the…

Reads KnT as an expression of Chaucer's own outlooks, i.e., his sympathetic views of chivalry and ritual.

Surveys medieval and modern understandings of honor as background to discussing the concept in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Malory's "Le Morte Darthur," and PhyT. Virginius "rightly kills" Virginia "to protect his own honour as well as her…

In CT, Chaucer uses prologues to achieve great diversity, displacing himself with other narrators. He develops a counter movement in his epilogues, in which the conventions of religious epilogues communicate, however tenuously, a unified religious…

Although written for the same fourteenth-century courtly audience/readership, KnT and MilT are two very different types of narrative. One of the features of Chaucer's Gothic aesthetic was to shift between high and low styles. These two Tales…

Seeks to define "romance" in Western literary tradition, commenting on its development from classical roots up to modern fantasy literature. Common formal features help to define the term, along with recurrent narrative patterns and themes. The…

Chaucer indicates that same-sex friendship is threatened when complicated by issues of "sexual love" (127). Considering TC, PF, WBPT, and FranT, Brewer calls for reinstatement of friendship "as a recognizable, uncontentious area of love" and praises…

Examines the portrayal of friendship in works by Chaucer, Lydgate, and Petrus Alfonsi.

Brewer critiques Root's explanation of relationships among TC manuscripts, arguing that Root's explanation is inconsistent and commenting on the possibilities of discovering the process of Chaucer's revisions.

Traces the history of romance as a genre as it adumbrates the modern novel. Includes recurrent references to TC.

Some scholars harbor a Golden-Age notion of chivalry not unlike that expressed in ParsT. Others, operating within a post-Freudian context, presume that the chivalric emphasis on ceremony must conceal inward anxiety or repression: hence, the…