Browse Items (16364 total)

Item not seen. Kendall's abstract indicates that the "vision poetry" of both Chaucer and Sir John Clanvowe share "discursive territory" with Gower's "Confessio Amantis," particularly "concepts of the late fourteenth-century aristocratic household and…

Explores aspects of Williams' development of his poetic identity, including the importance of Chaucer as a model, emphasizing the modern poet's knowledge of Chaucer and Chaucer criticism and his emulation in "Paterson" of Chaucer's comic techniques.

Clarifies the interdependence of romantic love and the ascent of the mind to God in medieval theology, philosophy, and Chaucer's works, especially HF, PF, LGW, and portions of CT. Argues that many of Chaucer's characters "with specious critical…

Contemplates "fantasy, identification, and the imagination itself" as response modes in the process of reading, exploring their "distinctive epistemological implications and significance for identity." Includes comments on works by Chaucer…

Correlates the "twenty-four 'Canterbury Tales'" with the twelve signs of the zodiac, observing two binary oppositions of the zodiacal signs in the "main characters" of each tale as they "symbolize parts of the body in the "astrological medical…

"This thesis examines the poetics and politics of ‘olde bokes’ (Legend of Good Women, G, 25) in selected works by Chaucer and Gower, paying particular attention to the way in which both writers appropriate their sources and the theories of…

Explores "the historiographic importance of Troy . . . in the formation of an English literary tradition as defined by the idea of authorship and negotiated through genre . . . . particularly epic, romance and history." Studies the sources and…

Shows how three "theoretical concerns are fundamental to Chaucer's art": "the nature of translation, the construction of textual memory, and the relationship between reading and ethics." Explores how in his dream visions, Chaucer "experiments with…

Focuses on the use of vernacular English, specialized vocabulary, rural protagonist, and addresses to reader in "Piers Plowman" that work to engage a "national audience." Includes attention to "Mankind," Gower's "Vox Clamantis," and several works by…

Studies "the bibliographic sensibility that characterized late medieval English manuscript culture," analyzing "the dialectical interaction between literary representation and its material support in a selection of late Middle English poems."…

Considers representations of the power of Medea's magic and Helen's sexuality in works by male writers in medieval and early modern literature, clarifying their classical and early-medieval antecedents and assessing their powers in light of…

Explores "what constitutes 'life' in hagiographical literature" and medieval life-writing in general, focusing on "philosophical and organic categories of life" rather than "political, social, and ecclesiastic content." Assesses Walter Daniel's "Life…

Chaucer in the Platonic tradition of "philosophical poetry" where "poetry is a self-reflexive epistemological practice that interrogates the conditions of art in general." Includes chapters on the Pardoner's Old Man as a neo-Platonic Tithonus figure;…

Explores "the construction and transmission of the concept of authorship in the Italian novella in late-medieval and early modern Italy and England," Chapter four considers "how English writers and translators worked with the Italian genre, adapting…

Studies "the early modern English controversy about women--the debate about the merits and flaws of womankind--arguing that authors in the controversy took advantage of the malleability of women's voices to address issues beyond the worth of women."…

Describes literary works included in "the curriculum in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English grammar schools," as background to understanding "the instruction of generations of schoolchildren" and "reading the Middle English literature created…

Focuses on KnT, ClT, and MkT to demonstrate that Chaucer "models his treatment" of his source-authors--Boccaccio and Petrarch--"on their own strategies of intertextual play," arguing that "intertextual engagement goes beyond mere imitation, and can…

Examines Lydgate's "Troy Book" as "as a vehicle to propagate the idea that the House of Lancaster is the legitimate successor to King Richard II in order to smooth over the usurpation of 1399." Acknowledges that "Chaucer had a definitive impact on…

Uses "abductive logic" to infer "translators' probable understandings of their own actions, and compares these with the reasoning" provided by various theories of translation, assessing as case studies Chaucer's use of translation in CT (especially…

Focuses on the "complex textual contingency" of the figure of Theseus in the "history of mythographical discourse," exploring "the fragmentary, fluid and polymorphous nature of mythology" in a wide variety of medieval and early modern texts--English,…

Uses the "two models" of "genealogy and thing theory" to explore "the generation of meaning in medieval texts," addressing issues of differences between the "Chaucerian" tradition and the "Piers Plowman" tradition and the processes of their…

Explores how Marie de France, the 'Orfeo' poet, Thomas Chestre, Chaucer, and John Lydgate "tell stories about the possibilities and problems of vernacular retelling . . . [and] imagine and enact a type of authorship--and a type of authority--based in…

Argues "that poets after Chaucer employ the dream form not simply in imitation of their master but rather to assert for themselves the same freedom to write imaginative fictions that Chaucer found in the form," exploring Chaucer's dream visions,…

"[I]nvestigates literary and pictorial manuscripts on the subject pf alchemy in conjunction with the theories surrounding sequential art," i.e., "comics theory," considering selected works, from CYPT to modern graphic novels. Opens with a "close…

Explores how "multiple modes of discourse" about the body--medical, philosophical, religious, and courtly--underlie works by Chaucer, Dunbar, and Henryson, arguing that CT, through its multiplicity of voices, "demonstrates fundamental medieval…