Browse Items (16012 total)

The question whether a poet celebrates the famous (medieval view) or seeks personal fame (Renaissance) is examined through classical and medieval traditions and in HF.

Explores the "predominant secularity" of Chaucer's "attitude" toward the liturgy in his various references to and uses of ecclesiastical calendars, legendaries (saints' lives, hagiographies, or lectionaries), sacramentals, breviaries, missals,…

Discusses a "fourteenth-century lending law" as a possible source of Chaucer's ShT, with its depiction of a "bourgeois financial triangle." More work needs to be done on Chaucer's knowledge of municipal ordinances.

Provides context for understanding Chaucer's references to Wade and to his boat (TC 3.614 and MerT 4.1423), summarizing medieval narratives and allusions to the hero in order to outline his "salient characteristics" and the deceptive (although…

Studies English/Flemish relations and Chaucer's contact with the Low Countries as a diplomat and as Controller of Customs, gauging the extent to which this contact affected his fiction in SqT, MerT, and WBP, and the ways that his "realism" can be…

Arguing that "Chaucer changed the direction of the Middle English lyric," Robbins comments on Chaucer's lyrics, on fifteenth-century lyrics, and on the influence of TC on the latter.

Describes Chaucer's contributions to English literary tradition: a "new kind of organization" of large narrative, an "urbane" style that assumes a shared set of values with its audience, and a "new attitude" toward the "usefulness and dignity" of…

Brown traces classical and medieval study of optics in various kinds of writing, arguing that in the late Middle Ages the science of "perspectiva" became part of intellectual consciousness, influencing Chaucer and several of his models (Jean de Meun,…

Discusses, on the one hand, psychoanalytic approaches to literature, femininity, and various aspects of Troilus and the narrator of TC; and, on the other hand, historicism, masculinity, and other features of Troilus and the narrator. Points out…

The program of illustrations in the unique witness to "La Crónica Troyana de Alfonso XI" inadvertently undermines Alphonso XI's efforts to situate his people and himself within a "heroic, even mythical, past" and predicts the tragedy that would…

Revises slightly the author's 1926 study of the same title (Oxford University Press), here adding two essays, also previously published: "Destiny in Troilus and Criseyde" (1930) and "Arcite's Intellect" (1930). The enlarged edition also updates the…

An introduction to "those aspects of Chaucer studies which involve manuscripts and incunabula," designed for classroom use, including discussion of binding, manuscript production and materials, decoration and illumination, paleography, book trade and…

Chaucer develops original significances for birds, especially in HF, NPT, and PF. Birds variously represent the bestial in humanity, models for human society, objects of ridicule, and mediators between God and man. All four can be seen in the…

Describes the general influence of European literature on Chaucer's works. In Japanese.

Argues that medieval Latin satiric writers such as Nigel of Longchamps and Walter of Châtillon contributed to the "essential nature" of Chaucer's "poetic imagination." In WBP, NPT, and elsewhere, Chaucer capitalizes on the satiric potential…

Part 1 traces the influences of Bernard Silvestris and Alan of Lille on Chaucer's works, focusing on themes of fatalism (in MLT), cosmic ascent (in HF) and hierarchy and nature (in PF). Regards Alan's influence as "profound," especially in PF, and…

Studies the "form in which Chaucer may have known Statius' poetry," focusing on "medieval glossed manuscripts" in order to identify correspondences between the poetry of Statius, commentaries on it, and Chaucer's works. Assesses the status of Statius…

Social history of late-medieval England, designed for adolescents, including discussion of Chaucer as "royal servant," poet, and "father of the English language" (pp. 1-9). Recurrent mention of Chaucer in subsequent discussions of historical topics.…

All major poets of the fifteenth century in England and Scotland considered themselves disciples of Chaucer. The extent to which they actually emulated Chaucer in their works, however, is questionable. Additional studies involving the Chaucer…

Scottish Chaucerians emphasize the different aspects of Chaucer's work--love fiction: "The Kingis Quair;" retribution: Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid;" and diction: Dunbar's "Thrissill and the Rose."

Modern readers must resist the limitations of twentieth-century literary-critical approach and interpret Chaucer in the traditional critical context: studies of manuscript tradition, text, and lexical context.

Chaucer is assumed to have had a high level of astronomical knowledge, unusual for medieval times. Olson and Jasinski used an Apple IIe microcomputer to investigate certain celestial constellations and to prove that Chaucer was correct in his…

Describes the limited presence of Chaucer in the early American films, commenting on a Motion Picture Academy educational promotion and a "distorted" version of PardT, "On Borrowed Time" (1939). Offers five reasons for this scarcity:…

Discusses poet-narrator ambiguity in four TC prologues and the Epilogue and in the narrator's guise as historian. The narrator is detached and didactic but also compassionate and helpless.

Traces in biblical, classical, and political sources the development of the idea that the Pope and other rulers gain sovereignty through "mystical marriage" to their respective institutions, arguing that WBT "bears a striking similarity to [this]…