Browse Items (15558 total)

Praises the art and skill of Chaucer's adaptations of sources and literary conventions in creating TC, comparing and contrasting the plot and characterizations of the work with those of a full range of its "literary progenitors" and exploring…

Suggests that the insertion of "prolaciouns" in Bo 2.pr.1 was intended as a technical clarification of the preceding "moedes," potentially misleading to English readers who could read it as either "mood" or "mode." The insertion may evince the…

Tabulates the percentage of romance words in the works of Chaucer against the overall length of these works, suggesting that, in terms of its romance vocabulary, Equat "is to be regarded as a work by Chaucer." Establishes a logarithmic formula for…

Describes birds mentioned by four English poets, one chapter apiece. An opening chapter surveys classical backgrounds for zoological and interpretive ornithology, along with the uses of birds in medieval encyclopedias. The Chaucer chapter addresses…

Identifies sources for a number of instances in MilT where Chaucer parodies, ridicules, or alludes to mystery plays—most evident in the characterizations of the Miller and Absolon as influenced by stage-versions of Pilate and/or Herod and the parody…

Includes four chapters, each devoted to a single poem as addressed on a particular occasion and/or to a particular audience, considered in light of rhetorical traditions, genre expectations, oral concerns, and sources: 1) SNT on the occasion of a…

Argues that, although derived from differing sources, the three parts of PF--the prelude, the garden of love, and the debate--are unified in their presentation of three perspectives on love. Framed as a conventional love vision, the poem juxtaposes a…

Identifies a politically cautious reference to CT in the "opening lines" of the "Kingdomes Weekly Intelligence," no. 241, "covering the week of Dec. 28, 1647, to Jan. 4, 1648.

Suggests that the pun on "hooly" in RvT 1.3983-84 as "holy" and wholly" encourages us to also see further word-play in the tale: "panne" as "penny" at 1.3944 and "allye" as "alloy" at 1.3945, both related to recognizing the connotations of "bras" as…

Explores Chaucer's association between love-longing and the song-thrush in Th 7.772-74, clarifying the significance of the bird in patristic commentary, bestiaries, and poetic tradition, and suggesting that it may indicate that Thopas's passion for…

Considers manuscripts, editions, translations, and contemporary examples to explore Troilus's use of "devel" in TC 1.623, documenting variety in reading it as direct address, expletive, or exclamation. Shows that Troilus is not calling Pandarus a…

The opening chapter offers subjective, impressionistic appreciation of Chaucer’s life, language, poetry, and links among them, proclaiming Chaucer to be "one of the most English of our poets" in his "tolerance, sweetness, and the lambent flame of an…

Appreciative criticism of CT, particularly Chaucer's realism, stylistic variety, and deft characterization, including that of his own persona. Comments on his life and language and on the appropriateness of individual tales to their tellers. Reads…

Challenges claims that the first-person feminine pronouns of ShT 7.11-19 indicate that the tale was originally intended to be told by the Wife of Bath, reading the lines as if they were presented in a "miming male" voice, and suggesting that the tale…

Suggests that the portentous oak of PardT 6.765 (no species mentioned in analogues) gains dimension in light of Chaucer having been robbed at a "fowle oak" in Kent in 1390, and also suggests, therefore, that Chaucer must have been written PardT after…

Comments on how "the medieval mirror and wisdom metaphor is utilized" in WBP and helps to characterize the Wife, ironically, as a figure of comic "worldly prudence" rather than true wisdom. Cites other examples from CT of ironic characterization…

Suggests that Chaucer's dismissive reference to incest in MLP 77ff. alludes not to Gower's "Confessio Amantis" but to his own hesitation in writing a version of the "well known folk tale of the Incestuous Father," hesitating "on grounds of taste to…

Connects the Clerk's uses of "heigh style/stile" in ClP 4.18 and 41 rather than reading the latter as a mistranslation of Petrarch "stylo alio" as stylo alto."

Recounts the scholarly tally of puns in Chaucer, locates the device in rhetorical tradition, and clarifies its wide range of stylistic effects. Then provides an alphabetical list of puns in Chaucer's works (more than 100), both previously known…

Objects to Robert L. Chapman’s argument that the ShT was originally intended for the Shipman, not the Wife Bath, comparing Chaucer's tale with Boccaccio's "Decameron" 8.1 as examples of the "Lover's Gift Regained" motif, and showing that Chaucer's…

Identifies and summarizes a close, modern analogue of ShT, written by Shelby Foote and published in "The Nugget" (November, 1955); comments on the oral transmission described by Foote in an interview and points outs several modern emphases.

Argues that themes of the "nature of literary art" and "the material with which the literary artist deals" unify the HF: the opening of the poem focuses on how "literary artist's imagination finds expression"; the eagle articulates an intellectual…

Comments on two 1954 publications (by John Owen and Philip Williams respectively) that pertain to Chaucer allusions, observing that both had been previously noticed and that the latter failed to identify a so-called "saying of Chaucer" as a refrain…

Adduces Vincent of Beauvais' "Speculum Doctrinale" to support reading "houres" in Chaucer's description of the Physician (GP 1.416) as a plural of "the technical Latin term for each stage of the development of a disease."

Introduces Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English, describing developments in syntax, morphology, pronunciation, lexicon, and dialects. The selection of samples for discussion and assessment includes excerpts from GP, PardT, and ParsT,…