Browse Items (15530 total)

Surveys the influence of Boccaccio's Italian and Latin works on English writers and literary tradition through the nineteenth century, with extensive analyses of Chaucer's uses of the "Teseida" in KnT, "Filostrato" in TC, and "Decameron" in ClT.…

Argues that the "chief characters" of TC "were probably modeled from real people" and, exploring alterations from Boccaccio's "Filostrato," speculates that Troilus is based on John of Gaunt, Criseyde on Katherine Swynford, and Pandarus on Chaucer…

Proposes that the facade of the thirteenth-century "Maison des Musiciens" in Reims may have inspired Chaucer's description of the exterior of Fame's palace in HF 1189-1266, hypothesizing how and when Chaucer may have seen the historical building.

Provides detailed background for Petrarch's ekphrastic descriptions of pagan gods in his "Africa" (iii.138-264), and argues that Chaucer's related descriptions in HF (131-39) and in KnT (1.1955-66) derive from the "Libellus de deorum imaginibus"…

Re-arranges the sequence of the descriptions in GP to align with the order in which the pilgrims tell their tales. Includes descriptions of pilgrims who tell no tales at the end, along with the colloquies or speeches of the pilgrims in the links…

Offers evidence that Troilus is "extremely young" in TC, comparing details from Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and other analogues.

Rejects Matthew Arnold's claim that Chaucer lacked "high seriousness," commenting on the "close interrelationship between the ironist and moralist" in the older poet's works, and suggesting that, though genial in his acceptance of human variety and…

Suggests that ManT 9.311-62 is a personal, dramatic rejoinder to the Canon's Yeoman and his account rather than criticism of the Cook.

Classifies various kinds of love in Chaucer's works--religio-philosophical, courtly, heroic, and syncretistic--with sub-categories of virtues, vices, and sins in each. Describes the sources, characteristics, and overlapping of the classifications,…

Suggests that "spiced conscience" in GP (1.526) means "peppery" moral indignation; "sweet, spiced conscience" in WBP (3.435), a "bland, gentle disposition."

Edits the complete works of Chaucer from various manuscripts, with end-of-volume explanatory notes, textual notes, and glossary. A general Introduction summarizes Chaucer's life, the canon and chronology of his works, his language and meter, and the…

Identifies an allusion to CkT 1.4421-22 in John Lacy's play, "The Dumb Lady" printed in 1672.

Offers anecdotal support for Pertelote's belief (NPT 7.2961-62) that worms can be used as a digestive.

Explores how several of Chaucer's putative additions to or revisions of TC (posited by R. K. Root) strengthen the poem's structural and thematic symmetry.

Accepts that the manuscript of Equat is Chaucer's own draft, with revisions, and suggests that evidence from TC indicates that "Chaucer did not wait till he had finished his work to have parts of it copied out fair by his scribe."

Focuses on Chaucer's uses of "this" to "create narrative tone and dramatic meaning" in CT, discussing a variety of examples and exploring metrical, rhetorical, and syntactic features as they help in characterization. Includes comments on the six uses…

Describes aspects of medieval French poetry that influenced Chaucer's style, high and low, tracing the idealizing, nonrepresentational conventions of courtly romances from the early twelfth century to their epitome in Guillaume's de Lorris's portion…

Considers Chaucer's uses of bird imagery in TC, contrasting them at many points with other, more anthropocentric literary birds, and generally commending his bird (and animal) imagery for its rhetorical range and evocation of precise emotion.

Suggests that Chaucer's citations of Lollius as a source for Trojan history may be attributable to his misreading of Horace's "Epistles" I 2,1.

Suggests that "for the nones" in LGWP (F 292-96 and G 194-98), rather than meaning "for the occasion," refers to the canonical hour of Nones, i.e., for the ritual of the "celebration of Nones."

Reviews arguments that identify and explicate "Seinte Loy" in the GP description of the Prioress (GP 1.120) as a reference to St. Eligius, and suggests an alternative possibility: St. Eulalia. Explores resonances of the reference--thematic and…

Includes Middle English texts by Chaucer (with glossary appended at end of document) in nine parts: I Proem (PF 1-4); II Pastorale (19 lines selected from LGWP-F 35ff.; III Pleynte (TC 1.400-20); IV Invocation I (TC 3.1-14); V Invocation II (TC…

Disagrees with R. L. Chapman's argument (1956) that the Shipman was the original teller of ShT, offering further evidence that Chaucer first assigned the narrative to the Wife of Bath.

Suggests that Andreas Capellanus's Rule 17 in "De Amore" is the "more likely source" for TC 4.415 than those previously suggested.

Explores the implications of the Knight's "cutting short" of the MkT, contrasting the characterizations of the two pilgrims, describing the Monk as "comic imitation of knighthood," and observing contrasts and parallels in the wording, details, and…