Browse Items (16369 total)

Much of the ambivalence of FranT comes from the various ways the characters perceive the world and the ways they act on these perceptions.

The concept of prudence was well known in the Middle Ages and was often seen as a specifically feminine virtue in medieval French texts. Drawing from those texts, Chaucer also underscores the feminine, making Mel a story for "real women living…

The "Rip Van Winkle" epigraph on keeping one's word until one dies (meaning that one will "not" keep one's word) is taken from a passage spoken by an old man to a widow in search of a husband in Cartwright's comedy, "The Ordinary."

Explores the imagery of nature and death in TC, arguing that Criseyde is "representative of a principle of life" and "best understood in terms of her cyclical or seasonal progression through the poem." Pandarus is associated with mutability, and…

Describes three groups of equestrians among the Canterbury pilgrims: those who ride proud horses, those who "ride either poor or at least un-caparisoned horses," and "those whose characters seem compromised by their 'inefficiency' as horsemen."…

Describes how the "tavern vices" of PardT (gluttony, blasphemy, gambling) "delineate the characters" of the three revelers and reveal their stupid and immoral inability to recognize the literal and the figurative meanings of death, properly…

Rejects attempts to read PardT as an example of psychological realism and reads it instead as a "rapidly progressing discourse" that results from "special use of rhetorical devices for the impression of speed." The Tale conveys to its audience a…

Adduces several passages from "thirteenth century 'De Arte Venandi cum Avibus' of Frederick of Hohenstaufen" to argue that in the setting and details of his bird parliament in PF Chaucer "may have been concerned as much with authentic bird lore as…

Observes legal implications in the Clerk's reference to the Wife of Bath's "secte" (oath-helpers or compurgators), and suggests that the reference "functions to interanimate" the Wife's, Clerk's, and Merchant's shared views of female mastery.

Explains that Pertelote's reference to "lawriol" (7.2963) should be glossed as a vomit-inducer rather than a bowel laxative.

Treats the Old Man of PardT as the "total opposite" of the three revelers: he "embodies or manifests . . . in some manner Christian goodness." He first offers to the revelers a merciful "way to salvation," but when they "flatly reject" it, he justly…

Describes the "basic historical method" of KnT as consistent with the "contemporary aristocratic chronicle," showing how Chaucer uses Statius's "Thebaid" to archaize the plot drawn from Boccaccio's "Teseida" and create a world "believable" for his…

Shows how Dryden altered KnT from romance to epic in order to make his adaptation, "Palamon and Arcite," exemplify "what a heroic poem should be, and by what means it should affect the reader." Also offers "reasons why the change from romance to epic…

Explores the thematic implications of several verbal ambiguities or double meanings in KnT: "array" (dress and predicament), "hert" (heart and hart), "wele" (joy and wheel), nuances of "turne," "boone" (reward and bone), and "righte way" in…

Argues that the GP description of "Chaucer's perfect Knight . . . seems carefully constructed to accord with the aims" of a "unified crusade" that was articulated by Philip de Mézières in his proposal to organize an Order of the Passion of Jesus…

Examines several bawdy puns, "incongruous situations," and other humorous ironies in KnT, suggesting that they are unintended by the Knight yet consistent with Chaucer's depiction of him as "a romantic, caught by reality but aspiring to the ideal"…

Identifies five structural units in the narrative of the KnT and reads them as a unified, seriatim manifestation of a world that is "tyrannized by mutability," resistant to individual and corporate efforts to find or impose order, and sensible only…

More than merely consolation for John of Gaunt, BD conveys the "more universal theme" of "personal loss and its effects on man's physical and psychic condition." Traditionally associated in various sources with leading, with healing, and with…

Considers evidence from ParsP (10.42-44), KnT (1.2605-16), and LGW (635-58) that Chaucer may have been familiar with Middle English alliterative romances, arguing that the proposition is unlikely. While he may have known alliterative religious…

Argues that "as a better joke," "worly" is preferable to "worthy" in Tho (7.917). The latter appears to be "scribal normalization" of Chaucer's mocking of a "well-worn native" word.

Surveys studies of Chaucer topically (language, manuscripts, sources, etc.), with emphasis on works written between 1960 and 1967.

Identifies "structural similarities" among BD, PF, and HF, arguing that each poem is an "elaborate narrative orchestrating a moral theme from some work of antiquity . . . foreshadowed in [its] preamble." Each is reminiscent of Macrobius's "enigmatic…

Argues that friendship in TC "is an idea that matters very much," both as a "value" and an "element in the plot." Throughout the poem, Chaucer depicts various friendship relations (support, protection, counsel), strengthening those found in…

Reads Scog as a playful, comic version of a "moral ballade" or "balade of bon conseyl" that shares similarities with French models, portions of TC, and several of Chaucer's other lyrics. Comments on the unity of the poem, its possible occasion or…

Compares the plots and characters of FranT and PhyT, arguing that they share parallels that are "significant" and "quite possibly intentional." Focuses on Dorigen and Virginia.