Browse Items (15542 total)

Behind FranT is the "Inferno," cantos 9-10--the cantos of the heretics, especially the Epicureans, and of Medusa. The teller's epicureanism prevents him from probing beneath the letter to the spirit. Likewise, his Dorigen is "astoned" (astonished,…

A difficult form requiring of the reader a complex consciousness and thus hitherto largely neglected by critics, Menippean satire provides a meaningful context for Chaucer. The works of the third century B.C. satirist, themselves being lost, come to…

Thirty-six essays by various authors on late-medieval literature and manuscripts, accompanied by an appreciation of Robbins's career and list of his publications. For seventeen essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Chaucer and Middle English…

Modernism, properly defined, allows the critic to evaluate Chaucer's art more meaningfully. Modernism has much in common with the medieval aesthetic.

Compares MerT, MilT, and ShT with works by Moliére, arguing that Chaucer's "dramatic impulse" is clear in light of "Comedy Proper," a dramatic form in which intellectual error leads to folly and just, comic punishment. Both writers succeed through…

The authors maintain that Chaucer's visit to Monserrat inspired aspects of HF and suggest that Chaucer's man of great authority (HF 2158) was Pedro IV.

Suggests that Chaucer identifies the virtuous women in MLT, ClT, PhyT, and Mel with one of the four cardinal virtues to enhance the characteristics found in his sources.

An overview of research in progress on the mythographic tradition in the Middle Ages (primarily commentary on the works of Virgil, Lucan, Statius, Martianus Capella, Boethius, and Ovid) and examples of its applicability to Chaucer.

Although Buk appears to be a condemnation of marriage, Chaucer may have been experimenting with the philosophy of Ockham and Williams in presenting two paths to "knowing": experimentation and trusting authority. Buk reflects Chaucer's concerns…

Mason surveys English translations and modernizations of Chaucer's works (and apocrypha) between 1660 and 1795, commenting on Dryden's and Pope's versions and the imitations they inspired. Includes a list of "Chaucer's Translations 1660-1795."

Unlike Ovid and Dante, who speak for fate and the universal order, Chaucer and Ovid speak for "the comic pathos of human frailty and human pretensions." The central concern of Chaucer's HF, BD, PF, LGW, TC, KnT, and NPT is with the attempt, and…

Discusses Chaucer's borrowings from Ovid in HF, BD, WBT, and ManT. Although to the fourteenth century the "Metamorphoses" was a chief among works demystified or allegorized to produce Christian doctrine, Chaucer rejects this tradition and emphasizes…

Study of extant manuscripts from fourteenth-century England reveals that Chaucer was familiar with Ovidian texts and commentaries of his time. He developed his own adaptation of tone and vocabulary, exploring the tension between courtly love and…

Discusses Chaucer's sense of history and his historical approach to the pagans and the imperfection of pagan theology and philosophy, centering on TC and on KnT.

Assesses Chaucer's relationship with Petrarch, focusing on translation theory, humanism, and Chaucer's uses of the Italian writer as source for ClT and the "Canticus Troili" of TC. Also assesses Chaucer's references to Petrarch in ClT and in MkT, as…

Compares pilgrimage in Japan with that in Christian culture and then discusses the pilgrimage to Canterbury in CT.

Addresses Chaucer's discourse on medieval political principles, including kingship and hierarchical order. Examines SqT, Mel, KnT, ClT, LGW, PF, and Sted.

Establishes the "intellectual background" to Chaucer's translation of Innocent's "De Miseria Humane Conditionis" as his "Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde," explores Chaucer's uses of the treatise in MLPT and PardT and their manuscripts glosses, and…

Examines treatment of several CT narrators and characters and sees examples of "othering" and hostile prejudice toward those characters. Proceeds from there to possible continuations of those prejudices in contemporary readings.

Holton argues that Chaucer generally prefers direct naming techniques, but he recurrently uses "pronominatio" (i.e., epithets and related circumlocutions) when relying on Virgil as a source in HF and LGW. Also shows how Chaucer exploits the negative…

We remain uncertain about the meaning of Cecily Chaumpaigne's release of Chaucer from a charge of rape, but the topic of rape (and forced marriage) in Chaucer's poetry reflects his sensitivity to the complex "definitional problems" of raptus. Chaucer…

Claims that Chaucer is a "rationalistic" poet, and suggests prospects for assessing Chaucer's use of dialectic or the "scholastic mode of reasoning" in his art, commenting on aspects of GP, ParsT, Mel, WBPT, Bo, TC, and HF.

Critical essays examine Chaucer's religious writings. Sixteen essays focus on fourteenth-century religious practices, and religious influences on Chaucer's writings, and offer ways of teaching religious themes and issues in Chaucer. For individual…

Traces a history of Chaucer reception in the context of Christian controversies by "situating Chaucer and the Chaucerian tradition in an international environment of religious controversy spanning four centuries." Emphasizes how Chaucer "engaged with…

Copeland outlines the classical-medieval tradition of rhetoric and its relationships with history, philosophy, and literary style. Considers the Pardoner as an embodiment of rhetoric and its potential for abuse; the Wife of Bath as rhetorical excess…