Burnley, J. D.
Erik Cooper, ed. This Noble Craft . . .: Proceedings of the Xth Research Symposium of Dutch and Belgian University Teachers of Old and Middle English and Historical Linguistics, Utrecht, 19-20 January, 1989. Costerus New Series, no. 80 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991), pp. 43-57.
Drawing on recent socio- and ethnolinguistic insights, Burnley examines the complex stylistic associations of commonly used language in a variety of spoken and written contexts. The structure of Chaucer's English is not neat and orderly but…
Burnley, J. D.
Yearbook of English Studies 6 (1976): 16-25.
The wording of MerT has many echoes, some heretofore unidentified, of medieval marriage services. Suggestions of the Christian ideal are thus juxtaposed to the characters' perverse misunderstandings of marriage throughout the tale, providing an…
Burnley, J. D.
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., ed. Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change, in Honor of John Hurt Fisher (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 23-41.
In sociolinguistic terms, Burnley examines orthography among literary scribes of Chaucer's day to find that spelling was far from standardized.
Burnley, J. D.
Leigh A. Arrathoon, ed. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction (Rochester, Mich.: Solaris Press, 1986), pp. 195-218.
Chaucer's characters are not psychologically consistent but (like the Host, or Pardoner) are illusions based on familiar voices and attitudes to engage the audience in moral concerns, as in MerT, PardT.
A review of the allusions to rhetoric in London poets of Chaucer's time fails to reveal a single firsthand reference to an original text. Rhetorical concepts contributed indirectly to their conceptions of poetry and gave the poets an air of literary…
Burnley, J. D.
Studia Neophilologica 54 (1982): 25-38.
Argues that the phrase "slydynge of corage" used to characterize Criseyde's moral character refers to "infirmity of resolve" but also involves unstable affections.
The medieval tyrant "topos," with its lexicon and its various transformations, provides the means of studying Chaucer's moral vocabulary. The tyrant figure embodies passion, cruelty, injustice, and the heartlessness. Its antitype is first that of…
Burnley, J. D.
Yearbook of English Studies 7 (1977): 53-67.
Although Chaucer's use of "termes" ranges from simple pun or word play to the emergence of an elaborate figurative pattern, his basic technique makes certain words gain power from use, context, and collocation and perhaps forms the basis of the…
Burnley, J. D.
Stewart Gregory and D. A. Trotter, eds. De mot en mot: Aspects of Medieval Linguistics. Essays in Honour of William Rothwell (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, with the Modern Humanities Research Association, 1997), pp. 1-15.
The use of "thise" plus a noun (e.g., "thise clerkes," "thise men"), rarely found in Old English, is "particularly common" in Chaucer and Gower; it probably developed in early clerical discourse and, encouraged by some French parallels,spread to…
Burnley, J. D.
D. Alan Cruse et al., eds. Lexikologie: Ein Internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wortern und Wortschatzen/Lexicology: An International Handbook on the Nature and Structure of Words and Vocabularies. 2 vols. . Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002, 2: pp. 1468-71.
Describes the historical and regional characteristics of Chaucer's vocabulary, his particular uses of various registers, and how he adapts them to circumstances and contexts.
Demonstrates Chaucer's "skills as a miniaturist," discussing antecedents in rhetorical tradition to the phrase "places delitables" (i.e., "locus amoenus") in FranT (5.899) and the interdependence of "moral and physical gifts" in the description of…
Burnley, J. D.
Durham Theses. Durham University. [http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7918/].
Examines the semantics of approximately fifty words that signify "benevolence and malevolence within courtly contexts in the works of Chaucer," exploring them diachronically and attending to "extralinguistic" factors in order to pursue a "literary…
Burnley, John David.
Dieter Kastovsky and Arthur Mettinger, eds. Language Contact in the History of English (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2001), pp. 17-34.
Challenges "over-simple dichotomies" between English and French in late-medieval England and illustrates the "pragmatic complexity" of the use of Anglo-French texts. Assesses grammar, style, "speaker attitudes" (with reference to CT and TC), and…
Burns, Christopher, ed.
New York: Park Lane, 1996.
Selects a variety of poems by British and American writers, arranged thematically, including examples from GP: 1-18 (original and translation), and 445-76 (Wife of Bath), 165-207 (Monk), and 285-308 (Clerk) in modern English; all translations by the…
Argues that Chaucer drew on Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and the "Ovide moralise" rather than on Geoffrey of Monmouth for his description of Pyramus's death in LGW.
Burns, Nicholas.
Joan F. Hallisey and Mary-Anne Vetterling, eds. Proceedings: Northeast Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature (Weston, Mass.: Regis College, [1996]), pp. 19-24.
Unlike modern thinkers who pose Islam as an "Other" in opposition to Christianity, Dante and Chaucer depict the continuities of the two religions. In "Divine Comedy," Dante disapproves of Islam but incorporates it into his cosmic scheme. In MLT,…
Burns, Sister Mary Florence.
Dissertation Abstracts International 22.04 (1961): 1154.
Studies the Collation Text and the Printer's Copy of Tyrwhitt's edition of CT, identifying his reliance on two manuscript witnesses--British Library Harley 7335 and Cambridge University Library Dd.4.24--and establishing "his fidelity to the…
Burrell, Arthur, ed.
Adelaide: University of Adelaide, [2009].
Traslates CT in modified Middle English (originally published in 1908), without notes or commentary, providing links to each of the tales in separate e-files. Occasional diacritical marks indicate stress. The Introduction briefly surveys "Chaucer's…
Explores parallels between several medieval analogues to Chaucer's use of the phrase "Latyn corrupt" in his description of Constance's language in MLT 2.519--the alliterative "Morte Arthure," the "Etymologiae" of Isidore of Seville (possibly, the…
Burrow, J. A.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1990), pp. 54-61.
Hoccleve, a personal acquaintance of Chaucer, received personal instruction from Chaucer in the art of English poetry. Hoccleve remains firmly subordinated to his master poet of imaginary worlds, but his distinctive strength is his being "a poet of…
Deals with medieval systems of dividing life into ages, with ages based on time divisions, and with exhortations to overcome the difficulties of various ages and to act one's age. Discusses the GP Squire as a youth, the Wife of Bath's youth, old…
