Browse Items (15464 total)

Edits the majority of Chaucer's verse (no prose included) in normalized spelling and modern punctuation, with bottom-of-page glosses and occasional brief notes. Omits Book 3 of HF, the legends of LGW (but LGWP-G included), several lyrics, and…

Lists Chaucer's works in chronological order, summarizes his career as a civil servant and poet, and offers a brief list of bibliographical references.

Suggests two unattested emendations to SqT: pluralizing "Cambalus" in 5.656 (to mean two brothers), and changing "hewe" to "shewe" in 5.640.

Shows that in his "Cambus Khan" Leigh Hunt is indebted to Edmund Spenser (and others who followed him) in modernizing Part I of SqT "almost as much as he is to Chaucer."

Explains the Host's reference to "gentil Roger" in GP 1.4353 as a possible play on "Roger Knyght de Ware, Cook," found by Edith Rickert in a 1384-85 plea of debt and reported in the "Times Literary Supplement," October 20, 1932, p. 761.

Historical novel for juvenile readers, set in London in 1381. Follows the growing romantic friendship between Kate, serving maid to Chaucer in his Aldgate residence, and a young commoner, Adam, who chooses to remain in London after the Uprising…

Suggests that Aristotle is the "most likely" referent for "the philosopher" in ParsT 10.484.

Argues from the evidence of life-records that Chaucer might well have accompanied Prince Lionel to Milan in 1368 when the latter wedded Violanta Visconti. Presents this in support of Ethel Seaton's discussion of PF (Medium Aevum 25.3 [1956]: 168-74)…

Analyzes the narrator of TC as a "dramatic" character—one who is known "by what he says rather than what is said about him"--whose shifting perspectives in the poem inflect readers' opinions of the other characters and their actions. The shifts also…

Observes an inconsistency in Emily's address to Diana in KnT 1.2349-52 that results from Chaucer's change in the sequence of the three protagonists' addresses to deities, altering his source in Boccaccio's "Teseida." Suggests that Chaucer was…

Shows that evidence from a twelfth-century bestiary may indicate that the comparison of Alison to a swallow in MilT 1.3257-58 ironically anticipates later events of the plot--her "departure" from John and his fall from the roof beam.

Describes the fabliau features of ShT, comments on its likely (though unknown) source, observes that its "personal generalizations" are unusual in the genre, and assesses its treatment of women and its stylistic features as evidence that its original…

Identifies the "tregetoures" of FranT 4.1141, not as jugglers or magicians, but as the "actors, craftsmen, 'artisans mécaniques'" who produced spectacular entertainments such as the ones recorded by chroniclers to have taken place at the Royal…

Argues that TC, in its "integration of style, structure, and theme with meaning," is best regarded as "transitionally Renaissance in its entire import." Articulates differences between medieval and Renaissance cultures, and argues that TC better…

Identifies allusions to Chaucer from the "Periamma Epidemion" of 1659: to the description of the Physician in GP 1.437-38 and to WBP 3.227-28

Contrasts the sorrows of the Dreamer and of Alcyone with that of the Man in Black in BD, arguing that the first two serve to elevate the intensity of the latter. Then examines the epideitic praise of Blanche/White as a form of personification that…

Describes the "intellectual milieu" of the Clerk in order to characterize him as "man of essentially humanistic temper, aware of so many complexities . . . that he found it difficult to rest in dogmatic assurance of anything." Traces the "movement…

Sketches the development of "Gothic humanism," Platonism, and naturalism in medieval "plastic arts" and theory, locating similar principles and practices in CT--the principles expressed at the opening of PhyT and the practices found in a variety of…

Describes Chaucer's "power and limitations as a stylist," offering examples, and tabulating more extensively examples of oaths and swearing in Chaucer's works, including strong and weak oaths, wishes, and imprecations.

Posits a "chronology of growth" for the CT, seeking "to follow the imagination of the poet and to recapture the dynamics of creation" evident in Chaucer's apparent changes in plan. Comments on earlier scholarly efforts to explain or understand…

Traces the unifying theme of joy after woe in KnT, "brought about both by the plot and by Boethian Destiny," focusing on Arcite's achievement of "welfare" and Palamon's "wele" after both start in sorrow. Theseus similarly replaces Egeus's saturnine…

Identifies three "predominant" characteristics shared in the characterizations of Pandarus in TC and of "the slave Spurius, who plays the part of a pander for a young lover in Guillaume de Blois' Latin farce 'Alda,' written somewhat before 1170:…

Explores similarities of Chaucer's description of women's hair (KnT 1.1048-50, PF 267-68, and TC 5.808-12) and Apuleius's "Metamorphoses" II.10, suggesting a similar aesthetic rather than a source relationship, and noting that all resonate with…

Anthologizes a wide range of selections from British and American literature—poetry, fiction, drama, and translations, with brief, appreciative introductions to individual authors and their works. Includes description of Chaucer as a "poet of light,"…

Suggests that the "gate-metaphor" of PardT 6.729 derives from a Spanish proverb fused with Maximianus's "Elegy" I.