Browse Items (15983 total)

Eight historical and legal essays by various hands, including two of potential value to Chaucer studies, especially treatments of WBPT: Barbara A. Hanawalt, "Remmarriage as an Option for Rural Widows in Late Medieval England"; and Richard M.…

Assesses the meter of line 1 of CT.

During the Middle Ages, widowhood usually brought legal, social, and economic benefits. Although the Wife of Bath makes calculated use of these advantages, May in MerT foolishly jeopardizes her inheritance. Fertility lore indicates that she is…

Includes a brief comical introduction to Chaucer’s poetry and a modernized selection from the conclusion to NPT, with b&w illustrations by Philip Reeve.

Describes procedures for incorporating student performances of portions of LGW into classroom activities and using these performances to help students evaluate other Chaucerian texts.

Argues that MLT and MLE are "fundamentally concerned with the transmission of affect." The tale "dramatizes how affect operates as a physical force that realigns individual and collective identities," while the narrator's style, combined with…

By the choice of the colors coral and green, Chaucer has turned a respected religious ritual into one of earthly desire.

Identifies a medieval tradition in which singing through the nose is a "sign of weak faith and lack of devotion," contributing to the satire of the Prioress in her GP sketch.

Surveys attempts to explain how MkT is appropriate to the Monk as teller, and cites examples from monastic preaching of associations of "the monastic profession and an interest in historical examples of misfortune."

Distinguishes among taverns, alehouses, and public inns, providing historical evidence that the latter were in Chaucer's day a "new institution," and maintaining that his setting of the opening of GP in an inn engages an emergent social culture,…

Examines why the expression "this Criseyde" never occurs in TC, from the viewpoints of accent, stress, syllable, rhyme, spelling, and form. Statistically compares lines containing the words "Criseyde," "Troilus," and "this."

Suggests that "gonne" rather than "goune" is the correct reading in "O mosy Quince," a lyric ascribed to Chaucer in Cambridge, Trinity College MS 3.19 (no. 49); supports the reading by identifying St. Barbara, cited in the poem, as "patron saint of…

Presents a version of the Griselda story from Thomas III, Marquis of Saluzzo (c. 1355-1416) in "Le chevalier errant," and analyzes how fourteenth-century audiences would have reacted to Chaucer's version in ClT. Includes a translation of Thomas's…

From the viewpoint of a history of social economics, Miyoshi explains why the poet chooses Bath as the Wife's place and shows that it was not unusual to to marry five times.

Acknowledges the Wife of Bath and Criseyde as different kinds of widows in the tradition of literary widowhood that underlies the Dona Endrina episode in Juan Ruiz's Libro de Buen Amor.

In forecasting Monday as the date of the flood, Nicholas seized on John's belief in current superstitions of the day's ill reputation, due both to its etymological association with the unstable moon and to the tradition of certain "perilous Mondays,"…

Phillips explores the proverbial and biblical background to ManT, identifying links between its plot and its teller, an untrustworthy servant. In popular tradition, crows were regarded as unfaithful servants and unreliable messengers, an association…

In attempting to make of literary criticism a science, the profession falls into illogic and absurdity. Readings of KnT and MerT differ wildly. From Kittredge to 1980s, critics have been self-deluded.

Discusses herb paris as a premedieval symbol of Christ's passion and divine love, traces its development from religious to romantic sign, and explores its dual meaning in MilT.

Argues that Wordsworth chose to publish his translation of PrT "for a very simple reason: he wanted to give an example of close translation of Chaucer, and it was the only one ready and unobjectionable." However, various critics found the translation…

Literary tradition and iconography connect "bath" to prostitution, also suggested by the Wife's living outside the former patriarchal city. These symbolize her prostitution in marriage, thwarting the system, her enrichment, and ultimately her own…

Chaucer leaves the Knight in KnT unblazoned to project the ideal which he represents and to avoid ascribing a coat of arms perhaps already in use.

Surveys the characteristics of the genre of the Breton lai in French and English, and argues that Chaucer labeled FranT as such in order to "minimize the religious implications of certain elements in the story" and encourage response to its courtly…

Argues that lines 81-120 of HF are Chaucer's adaptation of the topos of the "book curse," tracing the "speech act origin" of the curse and exploring Chaucer's use of the device to "tease his audience and manipulate its expectations."

Reflects on the newly discovered documents in the case of Cecily Champagne, and contends that, regardless of whether Chaucer was to blame, medieval studies and Chaucerian critics remain at fault if they excused Chaucer on account of his poetry.…