Browse Items (15534 total)

Surveys the critical history of "Lollius"--Chaucer's putative source for TC--and argues that the invention poses a poetic analogy to the absolute power of the nominalist God. By creating Lollius, Chaucer makes his general audience believe in the…

Twice the carpenter in MilT uses "astromye": is it a malapropism, an acceptable variant, or a scribal error? Since according to Manly-Rickert all mss of CT record "astromye," the last of these is not tenable. And since the word thus misused does…

"Astromye" is neither a scribal error nor an acceptable variant for "astronomye" but a malapropism that probably appeared originally as "arstromye," containing a pun in the first syllable.

In BD, CT (especially the opening of GP and ParsT), and LGWP, flower imagery evokes the "muted presence" of the "motif of resurrection," which Chaucer presents in a characteristic "collocation of Christian theology and authorial self-reflexivity."

Before Richard II's deposition, Chaucer affected an apolitical stance, while Gower became pro-Lancastrain. Poetic self-representation later gave way to politicized views in the works of Hoccleve, Scogan, and Lydgate. The dissertation also treats…

Traces the theme of authority versus experience through BD, HF, TC, LGW, WBP, ParsT, and Ret.

In TC, especially bks. 2 and 4, Chaucer selected and reconstituted details from Dante and the classics for ironic purposes, treating sources as "history." Appendix: Petrarch's annotations to "Aeneid."

The workings of "auctoritee" in KnT are at odds with established--especially Boethian--norms. All authority in KnT is overthrown. Habitually in Chaucer's works, authority is subjected to uncongenial contexts and the presumption of irony. As a…

Wyclif believed in the absolute authority of Scripture, with the mission of the Church as simple transmission without modification. In SumT, CYT, NPT, and ParsT, Chaucer questions the possibility of rehearsing truth inasmuch as the speakers distort…

FranT is comedic in structure from first to last since all the events are equally lucky for all the characters by the end of the tale. Noble gestures are made, even by the magician,but neither harm nor disadvantage results for any of those who make…

Briefly sketches a medieval philosophy of animal language in relation to medieval notions of translation as a communal ideal. In ClT, Chaucer presents translation as a form of revelation; in SumT, it is transgressive; in KnT, a kind of disguise. In…

Based on two Latin penitential manuals, ParT is shaped to conclude CT with both additions and deletions. Less strictly hierarchical than its major sources, the Tale emphasizes the individual's relationship to God and human society.

BD can be read not as a discontinuous apprentice work but as "a myth of the invention of poetry," with its stories and images yet to be molded into psychological and thematic cohesion. Imagination precedes signification.

When linked to issues of genre, the manner of constructing a female audience in FranT, LGW and Henryson's "Testament" may destabilize narrative closures and thereby offer moral intruction to women.

"Bear the bell" (TC 3.198) is best explained through a Welsh phrase in Dafydd ap Gwilym referring to falconry. Falcons wore bells, and the phrase meant "to be pre-eminent."

Chaucer's "portrayal of Troilus as a soliloquizing, swooning lover . . . reads like a fulsome apologia" for Richard II. TC reflects Richard's relationship with Robert De Vere and reveals his "sexless marriage" with Anne. SNT and LGW defend sexless…

HF is a response to the "creative anxiety inherent in seeking to continue a literary inheritance believed to have already reached its highest peaks of achievement." In his presentation of a desert landscape, Chaucer partially resists Continental…

Explores crossing patterns of suspense in TC: the "maximal audience suspense and minimal participants' suspense" of the early books are reversed in Books 4 and 5. Attitudes toward predestination complicate the patterns.

Describes various kinds of "parliament-poems" in Middle English, focusing on PF as a model for others, and commenting on the depiction of the parliament scene in TC, Book 4, and its concern with "voting by voices" or assent. Summarizes Chaucer's…

Nelson assesses medieval conceptions of marital "debt" (reflected in ParsT) in light of modern Speech Act Theory (Austin and Searle). The Wife of Bath's focus on the husband's contribution and the Merchant's focus on the wife's contribution reveal…

Looking at sources, Saito explores Chaucer's delicate use of "bisynesse," arguing that the Second Nun faithfully translates and tells the legend of Saint Cecilia according to her own "business."

The romance "The Siege of Thebes" being read by Criseyde at the beginning of the poem prepares us for her preoccupation with "siege" throughout the work. Pandarus persuades her to conceptualize Troilus as an antidote for the siege's danger, while…

Compares the consummation scenes in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and Chaucer's TC, focusing on Pandarus's role, and demonstrates how Boccaccio served as Chaucer's intermediary in a critical dialogue with Dantean assertions about language, love, and…

Suggests that "oon" in BD 47 follows a parallel reference in Jean Froissart's "L'Espinette Amoureuse."

Various practices of writing and formatting texts clarify how authors imagined writing and how readers received vernacular texts. Using models from cultural studies, editorial theory, semiotics, and traditions of medieval commentary, Irvine argues…