Browse Items (16476 total)

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…

Considers friendly and hostile relationships, commenting on GP and TC.

Describes the major social institutions and social practices of late-medieval England, identifying their roots, indicating their later developments, and illustrating their features from Middle English literary sources, especially the works of…

Exemplifies a variety of "inconsistencies and discontinuities" in Chaucer's works, particularly CT, presenting them as typical of the poet's "Gothic" aesthetics and consistent with contemporaneous art and the "complex cultural pluralism" of his age,"…

Brewer comments on his professional visits to Japan, on similarities between Japanese and European medieval cultures, and on promises, honor, and irony in Chaucer's poetry, especially KnT.

Encyclopedia entry that surveys Chaucer's life, language, and works chronologically.

Evokes the social and cultural conditions of England during Chaucer's lifetime by describing historical events, political circumstances, court life, domestic conditions for all classes, child-rearing, education and literacy, the influence of…

Study guide to MilT that includes a plot synopsis, running commentary, and glosses (text not included). Also includes descriptions of characters and characterization, various themes and devices, stylistic features, and suggestions for further study;…

Summary description of Chaucer's life and social contexts, accompanying by appreciative analyses of each of his major works, especially the CT (each tale summarized and described). Also includes discussion of Chaucer's genres, his uses of rhetoric,…

The clash of realist Thomistic Christianity (Dante) and nominalism (Ockham) provides the basis of Chaucer's exuberant satire on philosophy, linguistics, classical tradition, the state of the Church, and other late-fourteenth-century issues. HF…

Defines parody and surveys "all of the major literary parodies in Middle English, Old French, and Middle German," including "three little-known anti-courtly parodies by Hermann von Sachsenheim and Geoffrey Chaucer." Includes comments on ManT.

In PF, BD, and HF, descriptions of mural paintings serve a common function: Chaucer endows the visual artifact with the status of a narrative fiction.