Browse Items (16012 total)

Examines the influence of "Roman de la Rose" on European literature; Brunetto Latini, "ser Durante," Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Chaucer. "Five generations of Italian poets...defined their individual enterprise" against the "Rose." Chaucer…

Chaucer's poetry is highly dependent on Latin, French, and Italian works and genres, and on medieval thought in general. In his day his various works represented stages in the development of different medieval literary traditions; he borrowed from…

The Presidential Address, The New Chaucer Society, Fourteenth International Congress, 15-19 July 2004, University of Glasgow. Explores Chaucer's idea of "serious poetry," derived from French and Italian models. Comments on Chaucer's treatments of…

Assesses the pros and cons of applying patristic criticism to the study of Chaucer, arguing for typological rather than allegorical (or tropological) analyses and discouraging limited readings.

Explores aspects of sexual consent and non-consent in RvT--particularly Malyne's romanticizing of Aleyn's assault--linking them with Augustine's comments on Lucretia in "De civitate Dei," modern notions of "retroactive consent," and the Chaucer life…

Explores the relationship between gender and subjectivity in the works of Chaucer, assessing from a feminist critical perspective the traditional "adulation" of the poet. Hansen examines the "feminization" of Chaucer's characters and narrators and…

Deals with Chaucer's French sources and his reception in France.

In his early poetry Chaucer tried to use a purely native English vocabulary; his later works show a more comfortable use of the cultural vocabulary with which he and his bilingual audience were familiar.

Demonstrates Chaucer's extensive dependence upon French love poetry, tracing the development of "dits amoreux" from Guillaume de Lorris's portion of the "Roman de la Rose" to Chaucer's contemporaries and identifying where in BD Chaucer was influenced…

Defines the French literary topos of the good wife, wherein "female virtue grounded in prudence and self-control benefits the immediate domestic and also the wider public spheres." Reflected in Philippe's "Le livre de la vertu du sacrement de…

Describes aspects of medieval French poetry that influenced Chaucer's style, high and low, tracing the idealizing, nonrepresentational conventions of courtly romances from the early twelfth century to their epitome in Guillaume's de Lorris's portion…

Th, a burlesque romance, and Mel, a moral allegory, express substantially the same ideas in their satiric evaluation of military heroes and affairs.

Medieval thinkers reverenced the word for its power to give order to experience, but Chaucer throughout his writings calls attention to the unreliability of the word.

Hanna encourages more refined analysis of Chaucer's lexical practice, especially examination of patterns of choices between English and French synonyms.

Explores interrelations among world literature studies, comparative literature studies, textbook marketing, translations of Chaucer's works into various languages, Ngugı wa Thiong'o’s concept of "globalectics," and the essays accompanying Warren's…

Explores gift-giving in Part 5 of CT, from the magical gifts given to Ghengis Khan in SqT to the concern with generosity that ends FranT. Uses Derridean notions of gifts and exchange to argue that the sequence is Chaucer's means to "erase…

Although elite cultural views, such as those of theologians, set the polarities of moral judgment as good and evil, vernacular writings in Middle English--including Lollard sermons, Piers Plowman, and CT--set up instead a dialectic of sin and evil. …

Summarizes traditions antecedent to Chaucer's uses of classical deities, and asserts that Chaucer's own uses rejuvenate the tradition, arguing that he is less conventional than usually assumed. Treats sources and analogues, BD, HF, PF, TC, LGWP, KnT,…

The solemn tone of an unusually learned vocabulary, the skillful syntax, and the architectural strength of the ababbcbc eight-line unit combine to give Chaucer's "image of regret" in "Form Age" what Joseph Campbell calls the "force of living myth"

Documents the influence on WBPT, SumT, PardT, and, to a lesser degree, other parts of CT of the "Communiloquium" of John of Wales (or another fraternal compendium much like it), showing that a number of biblical, classical, and medieval quotations or…

While Chaucer undoubtedly mined John of Wales's Communiloquium for details in PardT, he also consulted Jerome's Letter 22, to Eustochium, for details not found in John's florilegium. Comparison of PardT with Jerome's letter elucidates Chaucer's…

Bowen considers the treatment of stringed instruments in Chaucer's Latin sources, their treatment as symbols of "celebration and peace" for characters in CT, and connections between the instruments and concepts of bodies. Stringed instruments…

Critiques traditional treatment of Chaucer's English as the main antecedent of modern English and the assertion that it is representative. Chaucer's English is more conservative than that of many of his contemporaries and of general spoken discourse.…

Surveys medieval understandings of Rome and its history as background to understanding Chaucer's allusions to Rome and Romans, especially his treatments of them in PhyT, SNT, the Caesar and Nero accounts in MkT, and the Lucrece legend of LGW.…