Browse Items (16107 total)

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.…

Clarifies the appropriateness of Symkin's wife swearing by the "croys of Bromeholm" (RvT 1. 4286), adducing Roger of Wendover's "Flores Historiarum" and, possibly, the clerical status of the wife's father.

Investigates the "equestrian vocabulary" used by Chaucer, with particular attention to GP, but including his other references to horses, their tackle, colors, names, conditions, movements, etc., clarifying the denotations of the terminology. Includes…

Historical detective novel, with Chaucer as the investigator of a string of murders while on a diplomatic mission to France in 1370.

Postulates a crucial division in Chaucer's poetic career, separated by a "courteous but thoughtful and decisive rejection of 'fine amour'," reflected in PF, TC, and LGWP. Acknowledges the impact of French and Italian models on Chaucer's changing idea…

Examines theatricality in Chaucer's work evidenced in spatial representations, the specialized behavior of performers, and the presence of an audience in PrT, SNT, and MilT. Some attention to TC, HF, MkT, SqT, and FranT.