Browse Items (16035 total)

The discrepancy between the vice of the teller and the moral of his tale requires the pilgrim audience to revise and postpone its judgment and thus to contribute to the meaning of the exemplum.

The Basata people of Zaire have a tale called "Mesapo" that strongly resembles PardT although it was not influenced by Chaucer's work.

Psychological studies of pain help us understand the Pardoner's personal suffering, his abuse of others, and his "harassment" of Paul's letter in PardP. His intent, style, and argument subvert his biblical model.

A dicing pun in PardT 6.696 foreshadows death.

Lines 138-41 are authorial commentary and should be punctuated as such. The revised reading makes more immediate sense, adding parallelism and a touch of Chaucerian irony.

Removing attribution of the phrase "al stille and softe" from the monk and reading the phrase instead as narrative discourse eliminates ambiguity, enhances our perception of the monk's character, and extends the tale's thematic concerns.

The Prioress's worldly graces and associations with Mary are well-suited to her esteemed position of religious and social power. Frank speculates that Chaucer chose PrT for its associations with the "cult of Notre Dame du Puy."

Discusses whether the dubious Eglentyne of GP is the right person to tell the pious tale. Chaucer's genius makes her succeed in putting deep human and feminine emotion into the tale.

Chaucer criticizes not anti-Semitism but rather the Prioress herself. The Prioress does not believe in New Testament attitudes on accepting Jews. Despite being a nun, she is unyielding in her belief that Jews are evil.

Discusses the language of romance in Th, focusing on seven types of "deviation."

Considers MkT complete as an experiment in a new literary form that Chaucer used to medievalize materials.

Examines Chaucer's use of descent and ascent, particularly in NPT, a successful comedy.

Chaucer's Saint Cecilia and Greene's Sarah Miles are both perceived as rude, disrespectful, and unbelievable. Their behavior and narratives can be appreciated only in the context of the hagiographical tradition.

ManT examines the kind of language by which a poet can survive. Given the historical context of Richard II's reign and the contemporary chronicle literature that warned of the necessity of suppressing one's speech, the individual must resort to…

According to the rules for infidelity in the Middle Ages, Phebus's wife is guilty of both adultery and high treason since she commits adultery with a person of lower birth and social class.

ManT is concerned with the method by which a story is told. Emphasis on the "gods' role in human marriage" restores the relationship between word and deed, a relationship important to the narrator of CT. Chaucer's numerous voices can be heard as…

Critical attempts to find a single meaning for ManT reveal the tale's own defiance of any didactic or schematized moral.

Fragments VIII and IX are connected by opposed images of sight and blindness, idleness and work. Themes of alchemical transformation and restraints on freedom (food, mates, language) also link the fragments.

Assesses the Parson in the context of historical records and medieval handbooks for priests, showing him to be a success of the system of patronage, education, and benefice. Identifies the social and economic advantages of his status and summarizes…

With its focus on sin, ParsT is the most Gowerian and least Chaucerian of the CT, even though Gower's presentation of sin is expository and Chaucer's indirect.

Ret is an example of a Derridean "parergon," simultaneously marginal to and an important element of CT. It allows for both humanistic and exegetical readings, producing a "hermeneutic double-bind," separated by an aporetic gap that generates new…

In Anel, Chaucer worked out his strategy of pitting profeminist impulses (the poet assumes the voice of the betrayed woman) against antifeminist allegory "in which men's betrayal of women represents poetic language's necessary betrayal of literal…

Chaucer's use of "herte" for "the hart," "the heart of the body," and the "sweetheart" unifies BD.

Analyzes Chaucer's treatment of bereavement and its consolation, particularly in relation to the exploitation of lyric in French narratives (both dit and elegy).

Allegorical elements of BD are closely connected with the theory of melancholy in the late-medieval period. Emphasizes parallelism between mental diseases (melancholy) and the creative mind.