Browse Items (15542 total)

Explores representations of the mother-in-law as a figure of Jewry and the synagogue in Western literary tradition. Although MLT overtly poses the Orient as the malevolent Other through the Sultaness, it also suggests in veiled ways that Jews…

Delany explores the "imbrication" of life and art in PrT and the expulsion of Jews from France in 1394. She gauges Chaucer's contact with Jews and describes the conditions under which Jews lived in fourteenth-century France, specifically the results…

Explores the symbolic value of the gems, their colors, and their settings (rings and brooch) in TC, discussing the moral implications referred to in medieval lapidaries.

A study of the "reiteration, instability and changing valence of the Jewish image as inscribed in medieval English books," focusing on four generic narratives: the Jew of Tewkesbury, the Marian miracle of the boy singer, the cult of Robert of Bury…

MerT is both fabliau and romance, both realistic and allegorical. Janus was god of gates and of marriage beds. January falls under Aquarius, associated with old age; May, under Gemini, was associated with youth. The name of the sacred Roman gate…

As a character "capable of saying one thing but meaning quite another," the Manciple ridicules the "wisdom of the mother" at the end of ManT. The crow suffers for the "feminine behavior" of talking too much, and the Manciple talks "as if a woman" to…

Chaucer made at least two authenticated journeys to Italy whereby he gained a knowledge of the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Curiously, though he borrowed extensive narrative material from Boccaccio, Chaucer never mentions him by name as…

Argues that Chaucer's similes cannot be explained in terms of imitation of Dante and Boccaccio or direct imitation of classical models. Instead, following the example of Dante and Boccaccio, Chaucer practiced a "poetics of vernacularization,"…

"The Isle of Ladies" was attributed to Chaucer until 1878. It is primarily a lover's complaint to his lady. The characters are based on Chaucerian models (like Criseyde) but play somewhat different roles.

Reproduces the Longleat MS 256 of "The Isle of Ladies" (included in Speght's edition of Chaucer), providing glossary, introduction, and notes.

Beginning with Gildas' depiction of England as a beautiful garden, explores metaphorical and physical gardens in medieval English cultural history, arguing that Chaucer indicates "awareness of nation as landscape" in CT. Chapters 2 and 3 emphasize…

Argues that, while clearly discrediting summoners, the Friar "also discredits himself." Reads FrT as a exemplum that satirizes summoners and, ironically, condemns the Friar's malicious hypocrisy, especially clear in light of contemporary sermon…

In a discussion of female constancy in the anonymous play "Common Conditions" characters from TC and LGW are used on both sides of the argument.

Uses allegorical interpretations from Hugh of St. Cher to show how the exegetical equation of cock and preacher is consistently upended in the description and actions of Chauntecleer in NPT, offering a mock allegory where "fruit is chaff."

Locates and assesses a prevailing irony in TC: the narrator and each of the major characters follows the "same pattern" of early knowledge of Fortune's instability, "followed by self-deception, and eventual submission to the facts." Love and truth…

Common characters and incidents in PardT and three Irish versions of Aarne-Thompson folktale Type 763 may indicate cross-fertilization between folklore and medieval literature. Most arguments favor an oral source for the PardT. The episode of the…

In TC, Chaucer avoids focusing on war, revealing his awareness of its importance in perpetrating the aristocratic culture of his day, as well as his need to evade the expectations imposed on him as a writer. Conflict and the psychological disjunction…

Combines computer-assisted stylometry and close reading to explore Chaucer’s concept of style and his uses of the word "style" itself as they compare with those of John Gower and John Lydgate. Clarifies aspects of stylometric analysis, distinguishes…

Provides a comprehensive view of how "race" is defined in the premodern world and addresses the process of "race-making" within and outside the European context. In particular, discusses how Jews in England were "racialized" and analyzes the "sensory…

Collects excerpts documenting how "the modern study of Middle English became the way it is." Thirteen excerpts discuss language, from George Hickes (1642-1715) to James A. H. Murray (1837-1915), and nineteen consider literary criticism and…

Includes discussion of Rita Copeland's representation of Chaucer as an author intending to supersede previous texts; where Chaucer would supplant classical texts, Langland is presented as attempting to conserve and extend scriptural/liturgical texts.

Historical novel set in London, Kent, Calais, and during a pilgrimage to Durham, 1386; the second in a series that features John Gower as first-person narrator investigating criminal and political events, in this case a mass murder that involves…

Explores how genre conventions and expectations vary between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century and produce different views of history. Includes discussion of BD and KnT for the ways that Chaucer reshapes their conventional genres (dream…

Certain fourteenth-century works (the York plays, "Confessio Amantis," "Piers Plowman," CYT) function by placing inadequate characters in crisis situations. The audience learns from their limited reactions. Most complex is MerT: the narrator's…

Chaucer's moral judgment of Troilus may be uncertain, and his judgment of Criseyde is definitely uncertain. Readers have attempted to clarify these judgments by appeals outside the text to law and theology; however, reading Henryson's "Testament" as…