Browse Items (15542 total)

A survey of the financial and legal records of Chaucer's life from 1385 to 1400 leaves an impression of Chaucer as a cautious nonpartisan.

Approximates the parameters of Chaucer's knowledge and acceptance of medieval science, pseudo-science, and occult practice by surveying their presence in his works, including discussions of astronomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, physiognomy, etc. His…

Twelve essays by various hands on Chaucer's received Christian tradition, scriptural interpretation, and glossing. For individual essays, of this volume.

Discusses similarities and differences between Chaucer and Shakespeare, concentrating on biography, theme, and literary techniques as well as borrowings. Comments on Shakespeare's adaptations of TC and KnT, and explores the writers' audiences, their…

Chaucer discovered tragedy as a narrative genre not from Boccaccio but from Boethius and from the glossator of his own copy of "De consolatione," who may have been Ralph Strode. Chaucer's concept of tragedy included the fall of the innocent as well…

Examines scholarship that traces Chaucer's "subtle" influence on Shakespeare, by drawing connections between MerT and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Close reading of KnT, focusing on elements such as syntax, diction, and imagery, shows Chaucer's dexterous use of high, middle, and low styles. The variety and combination of elements produce the tone of the poem and "naturalize" its philosophical…

Comments on modern efforts to "get ahead" and contrasts them with attitudes toward success in HF.

In the prefatory note to the 1592 "A Declaration of the True Causes" (STC 10005), there is an allusion to the pseudo-Chaucerian verses "Chaucer's Prophesie."

Rather than the usually accepted "Adversus Jovinianum," Saint Jerome's letter to Pammachius is the probable source of the Wife's reference to barley (WBP 145). At best the result is an ambiguous vindication of--and at worst an attack on--the martial…

As found in "The Golden Legend" ("Legende Aurea") and the "South English Legendary," the life of St. Kenelm offers striking parallels with both PrT and NPT, in which Chaucer refers to it (7.3110-21). Kenelm was murdered at age seven, perhaps the…

Examines thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Anglo-French, noting that Chaucer was steeped in an Anglo-French environment. This very Anglicized French--a second language of culture used to keep records--was the French Chaucer knew best, and his lexis…

Chaucer's connection with Ralph Strode is important in shedding light on the poet's "philosophical preoccupations." His "tutorial" from Strode might have exposed him to the entire range of philosophical speculation of the day.

Studies the "theology of marital relations" in MilT, WBP, and MerT, using ParsT as a partial statement of orthodoxy, surveying views from Augustine to Wyclif of the roles of procreation and pleasure in sexual relations between married partners, and…

Establishes that the "Breton" lay is a British lay composed by ancient Britons, not by minstrels of Brittany. The MED gives a British origin for most of its citations of "Britoun" and "Britaine." The validity of the sources for the other citations…

Compares MerT with "Comedy of Lydia" (an analogue) and suggests that Chaucer looks on the January-May follies with amusement whereas the laughter in "Comedy" is didactic.

The narrator of MerT evokes the same moral response from the audience as the authors of the "Comedy." Although the narrator appeals to the superiority of the audience over his dramatic characters, he perhaps admires their crudeness, which the…

Aware of the ethics of "commune profit," Chaucer condemns the self-seeking Franklin, Miller, Reeve, and Wife of Bath, while commending the other-centered Parson and Plowman.

Hubertis M. Commings' dissertation (1914) denying that Chaucer knew the "Decameron" and an influential article by Willard Farnham (1924) positing that the work was not known in England until 1566 both are speciously reasoned. Chaucerian echoes of…

Chaucer's use of Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" as a source for his TC demonstrates three major kinds of creative "translacioun": innovative translation of specific words/phrases and lines, brief additions of phrases and lines, and the interpolation…

Describes the features of FranT that affiliate it with the genre of the Breton lay (Breton lai) and those that make Chaucer's work unique. Considers the sources of FranT, and explore its aesthetic success as an "imitation" of the genre, including…

Discusses seven examples of the influence of the "Ovide Moralisé" on Chaucer: HF 957ff., Anel 1-6, TC 5.1464-84, WBP 3.733ff., MLT 2.633-35, ParsT 10.261ff., and the recurrent phrase "alone, withouten any compaignie" (KnT1.2779, MilT 1.3204, and Mel…

Identifies Chaucer's uses of the "Ovide Moralisé," particularly the narrative material of the French poem rather than its allegorical interpretations, often used in combination with Latin sources. Considers LGW, Form Age, TC, HF, ManT, and ParsT,…

Chaucer is indebted to "The Romance of the Rose" for many of his techniques of irony, such as the juxtaposition of units not in themselves ironical, the exposure of hypocritical or false reasoning, the unreliable narrator, ironical digression, and…

Studies rhymes and rhyme words (the elements least liable to errors in transcription) and amends the traditional view that Chaucer could have written Fragment A but neither B nor C: fragments A and C are equidistant from B and could be the work of a…