Browse Items (16320 total)

There was a new tendency to assimilate paganism to Christian doctrine in medieval European literature. Emphasizing the influence of the sources and analogues of medieval Latin literature on Chaucer, Ebi discusses the meaning of the Alceste myth in…

Asserts that the label "Scots Chaucerian" clearly does not apply to William Dunbar, documenting the "meagerness of the evidence of Chaucer's influence on him" and demonstrating that Dunbar's poetry is "completely continental" rather than Chaucerian.

Argues that the source of ShT is Boccaccio's "Decameron," and that their several differences were "made necessary by Chaucer's alteration of the ending." Chaucer gave his tale the "superficial appearance of a French fabliau" in order to critique the…

Linking the idea of intention to the moral self in the medieval understanding of the subject, considers TC along with Margery Kempe and "The Testimony of William Thorpe."

Treats (1) the theme of poetry in Dante's "Purgatorio," (2) why Ulysses is in hell, (3) FranT, (4) ManT, (5) "Unaccommodated Man" in "King Lear," (6) The imaginative and the real in "Antony and Cleopatra," and (7) Shakespeare's dramatic illusion in…

An anthology of sources and analogues of MilT, RvT, MerT, and ShT, with more limited analogous materials for SumT, ManT, and FrT, in all cases providing facing-page translations of non-English materials. Each section includes an introduction that…

Mentions HF 1321-22 as an early example of the role of heralds in the fifteenth century as "court publicists."

An international ranking which summarizes the lives and works of 100 writers. Chaucer is listed as number five (behind Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, and Tolstoy), and credited with a "fundamental redefinition of the possibility of poetic expression."

Feminist criticism has changed perceptions of the Wife of Bath. Feminist critics perceive her not as a superficial and "garish caricature" of womanhood but as a serious person attempting to establish her identity, rejecting antifeminist tradition,…

Like individual tales, the links of The Canterbury Tales exist in several authorial versions, indicating that Chaucer prepared several versions of the whole during his lifetime. Thus, the notion of a single manuscript stemma is impossible or…

In CT, sentences are interlinked. Structures are repeated: MilT is a bawdy version of KnT; RvT, a nasty version of MilT. The structure may reflect interlinked concepts in the Great Chain of Being.

The authors review previous scholarship concerning Cambridge MS. Dd.4.24 and evaluate the linguistic stratification indicated by orthographic variants. They argue that the manuscript appears to date from the late fourteenth century, that it…

Treats the motif of wish-fulfillment in WBT, KnT, FranT.

Explores how the concern with vision as a way of knowing is a concern in a variety of medieval dream visions, including "Pearl," "Piers Plowman," and HF.

Analyzes the list of trees in KnT and discusses as counterpoint the lists in PF. Contends that KnT refigures the trope of epic listing to insert a tragic tone into Chaucer's retelling of Boccaccio's "Teseida."

Challenges the universal applicability of the "organic" ideal (form equating to content) of New Criticism, arguing that it is applicable to modern novels but not earlier narratives. Explores Chaucer's and his audience's "lively consciousness of his…

Argues that social identity is fundamental to description of each pilgrim and determines how each is presented; examines how Chaucer presents himself in rhetorical terms, with particular reference to the "diminutio" of GP 745-48.

Suggests that readers most identify with Pandarus in TC because he embodies the type of the folkloric trickster.

Combines a biography of Benedictine astronomer John Westwyk with contextualizing information about medieval science, technology, education, and innovation, particularly in the monastic settings of St. Albans Abbey and its Tynemouth Priory. Credits…

Traces Chaucer's life and the development of his works in relation to court life and the affairs of contemporary London. Divides his life into six periods of professional activity and explores his changing status as a public servant, the growth of…

Chaucer's childhood was pleasant and stimulating. He was a close and lifelong friend of John of Gaunt. Alice Perrers was likewise his close friend and patron. Richard was an intelligent, sensitive ruler, more sinned against than sinning. In 1398,…

Assesses "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell" with recurrent glances at its analogues, Gower's "Tale of Florent" and Chaucer's WBT. The life question in the "Wedding" and in WBT "speak directly to a perennial feminine plight" (69), and in…

Chaucer's uses of the term trouthe (truth, integrity) indicate that he is a serious moralist, though sometimes ironic. Kane focuses on GP but also draws examples from FranT, CYT, Anel, and Langland's Piers Plowman.

PardT and Boece provide examples of voiced "s" as equivalent of "z."

Through the application of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Schaber examines HF, BD, PrT, and PardT to determine the repressed objects, erotic and political, manifested as the body and understood as fantasmatic.