Browse Items (16012 total)

Similarities between Chaucer and the Middle English mystics do not imply a conscious intention on his part either to imitate the mystics or to parody them ironically.

There is a tradition which views the knight's pursuit of love as an inversion of responsibility to God and to society. In CT, the Knight embodies spiritual and social duty whereas the Squire represents a subversion of proper knightly functions.

The warm acclaim the Victorians gave to Chaucer reflects the nineteenth century's anxious and conflicted responses to rapid urbanization.

Chaucer represents popular discourse as analogous to social, historical, and even apocalyptic disruption. He thus variously attempts to contain and to release its power: In TC, disruption can be temporarily contained by heroic action; in KnT, it…

As a nominalist, Ockham is aware of the limitation of human perception and the weakness of language to convey ideas without distortion. In a different way, Chaucer, too, is concerned with these problems, though as a poet he tends to emphasize (not…

Revives the idea that Chaucer visited Ireland between 1361 and 1366, placing new emphasis on the date of the Statute of Kilkenny. Identifies sources for Chaucer's works in Irish and Norse literatures. Observes parallels for HF in the "Topographia…

Examines the origins of the "nouvelle: in "news" and Chaucer's interest in tydynges.

Surveys rhetorical approaches to Chaucer and documents the "renaissance in rhetoric" in late fourteenth-century England by surveying manuscripts that contain rhetorical treatises. The impact of this renaissance is evident in Chaucer's poetry: while…

Pagan gods represent planetary influences, alchemic symbolism,psychological allegory of emotional states, and historical examples of virtues or vices. They also dramatize the worldliness of Chaucer's characters and relate it to the condition of…

Considers "some unnoticed passages" that shed light on Chaucer's references to "Trophee" and the Pillars of Hercules (MkT 7.2117-18), identifying no specific source but showing that parallel information was available in medieval accounts such as the…

Revised, reformatted version of 1982 edition (see SAC 8 [1984], no. 14) of the poems signed "Ch" in University of Pennsylvania Manuscript 15. Includes an updated, expanded introduction; revised commentary on the poems and Chaucer's relations with his…

This fourteenth-century MS carries the notation "Ch," perhaps for "Chaucer," before fifteen of its 310 French lyrics. Wimsatt edits the "Ch" poems and ten others from the collection to illustrate the kind of French poetry that Chaucer might have…

Draws on connections between "Chaucerian poetics and the properties . . . of gold," and maintains that "gold is a deep metaphor for poetry." Examines Chaucer's poetic references to gold and "sumptuous description" in CT, particularly in KnT.

The characters of individual pilgrims are revealed through their speech, which often serves to underline their philosophical viewpoints. Chaucer's awareness of language and its creative powers reflects a general skepticism regarding the…

The tension between sensual love and orthodox truth in TC can be seen in nascent form in Boccaccio's "Filocolo," even though Chaucer depends for his plot on "Filostrato." The tension is rooted in Dante's "Comedy" and in the "Roman de la Rose," but…

A study of literary allusion in the "Troilus," with specific reference to the "Roman de la Rose," Virgil, Ovid, Statius, and Dante. Suggests that the poet-narrator of the poem evolves from a writer in the tradition of courtly romance to a poet in…

Although Chaucer's narrator is sympathetic to the hero of TC, Troilus's "stellification" contradicts our expectations because he values his own desires over the welfare of the polis. Chaucer's "political and moral judgment against Troilus's…

A recurrent concern in Chaucer's works is the relation between society and discourse, a concern Chaucer shares with Italian humanists. In BD, Chaucer demonstrates the reciprocity of speaker and listener; the playfulness and lack of closure in HF…

Through the tree catalog and the "unassimilated voices of the lower birds" in PF, Chaucer records his awareness that distinctions between nature and culture and between human and nonhuman are "species-ist"--an awareness similar to modern…

Explores fusions of penitential values and Wycliffite ideals in Chaucer's LGW, ParsT, and Ret, arguing that he used them to counter Richard II's use of exempla to suppress political dissent.

Argues that GP 259-62, 642-43, and TC II, 36-37 are allusions to the Great Schism: the Friar like a pope in his "'double' worstede"; the pope like a popinjay (of two voices?), and the proverb that more than one way leads to Rome.

Revises, and reprints as one, the following essays: "Inverse Counsel: Contexts for the 'Melibee'" and "Chaucer's Tale of the Second Nun and the Strategies of Dissent."

Late sixteenth-century Elizabethan reception of Chaucer focused as much on his "recreational" talents as a vernacular poet and stylist as on his doctrinal or philosophical themes. Constructed as a "prodigal" poet as well as a laureate, Chaucer was…

Chaucer's narrative style--describing a host of particulars in minute detail--was influenced by nominalist denial of the ontological existence of universals. But Chaucer's preoccupation with Boethian themes indicates a continuing interest in more…

Examines the dating, authorship, textual history, and medieval popularity of "De Maria Magdelena," attributed to Origen, as a basis for exploring Chaucer's use of it in his "Orygenes upon the Maudeleyne," cited in LGWP F427 (G418) and here regarded…