Browse Items (16320 total)

Reviews the history of medieval manciples, lawyers, and stewards. Reads Chaucer's Manciple as "ironic and allusive" and an "indispensable middleman" in ManT.

An abstract of a paper that considers ClT and Petrarch's version of the Griselda tale in comparison with "Laxdaela Saga" and Marie de France's "Le Fresne". In all, the central female figure "possesses a greater value than may at first appear."

Traces several interpretative concerns raised by MLT and demonstrates how the tale "has much to teach us about the layered, multipart narrative of project" of CT. Discusses "gender and religious difference," the secular and the sacred, the…

A textbook edition of MLPT in Middle English, with an introduction and end-of-text notes and glossary; includes the GP description of the Sergeant of Law. The Introduction (pp. 7-57) assesses various "puzzling features" of MLP, its place in Chaucer's…

Chaucer's primary source for MLT was not Nicholas Trevet's Chronicles but Gower's Tale of Constance. Chaucer found in Gower's tale a streamlined shape, sharper focus, a greater depth of character, and a heightened moral emphasis. It was Gower who…

Psychoanalytic exploration of the "fantasy-structure" of MLPT, arguing that medieval and modern audiences "would have similar unconscious responses to the text." Suggests a similar, broader reading of all of CT.

Assesses modern "unease" with Chaucer's "pathetic" tales, focusing on the combination of the "superficially tragic and the slightly comic" aspects of MLT in which the subject matter invites audience sympathy or empathy while the style encourages…

For Chaucer, Rome is an ancient imperial capital, a goal of medieval pilgrimage, and a center of trade--trade in devotions, indulgences, and pardons that allies mercantilism and religion. Such a Roman transaction also involves relics or monuments,…

Describes the episodic symmetrical structure of MLT; comments on the characterization of Constance; identifies the rhetorical uses of occupatio and elaboration in the Tale; and (in footnote 1) summarizes its concern with astrology, fate, and Boethian…

Recorded at the University of Adelaide, 1994. Re-edited and digitally mastered as a CD-ROM by Troy Sales and Paul Thomas in 2004.

The tale of Custance is related to medieval lives of sainted women but is opposed to them in its concentration on the secular relations of an ordinary woman. Through this tale, the Man of Law seeks to reconcile the conflicting claims of the divine…

Suggests that the version of the Constance story in the Middle English romance "Emare" may help to account for why in MLP the Man of Law says that he learned the story from a merchant.

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The Man of Law, in the telling of his tale, wants to present himself as a fount of knowledge. In Part I he frequently interrupts the narrative to voice his own comments. In Part II, as the power of God manifests itself in the trial scene,the…

Contrasts the moral seriousness of MLT with the comic mode of MLP and MLE, arguing that they combine to present the Man of Law as Chaucer's "ironic portrait" of pedantic, dogmatic, or moralistic readers and critics (perhaps John Gower) who would…

In MLT Chaucer does not change the events found in Trevet, but, rather, transforms their telling so as to alter our perceptions of them. His purposeful complicating expresses the Man of Law's narrative technique.

Examines the related topoi of the man in foul clothing and the wedding guest with no robe as they are depicted in "Cleanness," "St. Erkenwald," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Julian of Norwich's "The Showings," and CYPT, arguing that the texts confront…

Reconsiders characterizations of the Dreamer of BD from George Lyman Kittredge (1915) forward, focusing on the Dreamer's reception of the Man in Black's song (475-86). Compares aspects of BD--especially the song--with sources and analogues from the…

Unlike Machaut's knight, Chaucer's Black Knight, when describing his lady, shifts his attention from her outward appearance to her inner nature, as if he gradually comes to realize her value to him--a realization that helps him cope with her death.

Challenges the traditional "misleading" explanation of a Chaucer life-record, particularly the uses of the name Malin/a, reopening "the question of the Malin branch of Chaucer's ancestry." Observes that the name is used in RvT

Describes development of the English literary canon in light of two parallel developments or "epistemological shifts": the development from a "rhetorical" to a "modern 'objectivist' culture" and the shift from an idea of "canonicity based on…

Assesses the roots and development of Middle English studies as a reflection of antiquarian and nationalistic impulses. Traces the growth of English medievalism from Bishop Thomas Percy to Frederick Furnivall and focuses on the impact of individual…

Though hailed as an innovator by his successors and subsequent critics, Chaucer adapted existing traditions in innovative ways. "Colloquial" and "aureate" styles had already been developed in English, but he juxtaposed them. He was less the…

Historical analysis of Chaucer's complete lexicon, arguing that his English is traditional rather than innovative. Chaucer naturalizes French and Latin words in ways similar to those of his English predecessors, often fusing foreign and native forms.…

Investigates the relations between the sketch of the Sergeant of the Law in GP and historical evidence of contemporary members of the "Order of the Coif." Surveys the nature, activities, garb, and affiliations of fourteenth-century legal sergeants,…