Browse Items (16381 total)

The first two in a series of essays Dédéyan published on Dante in England in Les Lettres Romanes, volumes 12-15 (1958-1961). The first surveys references, allusions, and uses of Dante in TC, PF, and HF. The second continues the discussion of HF,…

Addresses "source relationships of geographical matters" in Chaucer. Chaucer's cosmography and its sources, and other "geographical matters," arguing that Chaucer "makes more frequent use of geography than do most of his contemporaries." Focuses on…

Aligns Chaucer's style, themes, and characterization in TC with Renaissance humanism more than with medieval conventions, genres, and rhetoric, arguing that the poem anticipates the "poetry of Shakespeare's century" in its fusing realism, epic, and…

NPT, adapted and illustrated for juvenile audience.

Includes an appreciative, discursive survey of critical studies and scholarship about Chaucer.

Demonstrates "the extremely close dove-tailing of the three major sections" of BD "and the way in which they complement and illuminate one another" through parallel incidents and atmosphere. Then examines "the imagery patterns in the poem" to show…

Appreciative commentary on Chaucer's life and works, considering what can and cannot be determined from his life-records and literature, why he may not have completed several works, why (though a civil servant) he did not comment on political events,…

Augments Baum's earlier dictionary of puns (PMLA 71 [1956]), with nearly 30 more examples noticed by Baum and by readers of his earlier listing, exemplifying and explaining each.

A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1956.

Argues that the correct reading of TC 5.1809 is the eighth sphere (not seventh as in some manuscripts), and that Chaucer's "making use consciously or unconsciously of an old tradition, placed his hero for all eternity in the sphere of the fixed…

Transcribes (with modern punctuation, capitalization, and commentary) a 26-line compilation of proverbial misogynistic sentiment from London, British Library MS Harley 7333, fol. 121v-122r, attributed there to "Impingham," identified by Manly and…

Argues that "[c]ompression and inversion direct Shakespeare's use of" TC in "Troilus and Cressida," particularly, "the clear inversion of every idealistic feeling save those of Troilus is so relentless that a 'mirror image' emerges." Shakespeare…

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"…

Surveys the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French tradition of short love-visions, observes similarities between PF and Oton de Grandson's "Le Songe Saint Valentin," and emphasizes that Chaucer's originality most evident in two ways: his…

Identifies a cut-down single-page portion of Book 1 of TC ("Cecil" manuscript), found attached to the cover of a rent book in Hatfield House. Provides a facsimile, transcription, table of variants, and commentary.

Suggests that "don thyn hood" in TC 3.954 may have the literal meaning of "put on your nightcap" or, more likely, the figurative meaning of "restrain yourself," the latter drawn from the practice of hooding a hawk.

Locates a previously unnoticed allusion to MilT 1.3638-39 in Samuel Harsnet's "A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures" (1603), perhaps recalled from memory.

Locates an allusion to "Chaucers Bootes" (see Bo 4m5) in line 17 of Nathaniel Ward's "commendatory poem" written for Anne Bradstreet's "Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America . . ." (1650).

Edits the majority of Chaucer's verse (no prose included) in normalized spelling and modern punctuation, with bottom-of-page glosses and occasional brief notes. Omits Book 3 of HF, the legends of LGW (but LGWP-G included), several lyrics, and…

Lists Chaucer's works in chronological order, summarizes his career as a civil servant and poet, and offers a brief list of bibliographical references.

Suggests two unattested emendations to SqT: pluralizing "Cambalus" in 5.656 (to mean two brothers), and changing "hewe" to "shewe" in 5.640.

Shows that in his "Cambus Khan" Leigh Hunt is indebted to Edmund Spenser (and others who followed him) in modernizing Part I of SqT "almost as much as he is to Chaucer."

Explains the Host's reference to "gentil Roger" in GP 1.4353 as a possible play on "Roger Knyght de Ware, Cook," found by Edith Rickert in a 1384-85 plea of debt and reported in the "Times Literary Supplement," October 20, 1932, p. 761.

Historical novel for juvenile readers, set in London in 1381. Follows the growing romantic friendship between Kate, serving maid to Chaucer in his Aldgate residence, and a young commoner, Adam, who chooses to remain in London after the Uprising…

Suggests that Aristotle is the "most likely" referent for "the philosopher" in ParsT 10.484.