Browse Items (15542 total)

Twenty essays by various authors, plus a forward (pp. 13-25) by Lester that describes the career and lists the publications of Norman Blake. The essays consider Middle English language, literature, editing, and publishing, with eleven essays…

Compares characterization in KnT with Milton's in "Paradise Lost."

Review of "Legenda femeilor cinstite si alte poeme" (1986). Dan Dutescu, praised as a highly sensitive translator possessing the "quintessence" of the art of translation, has given Romania its first complete Chaucer translation--of LGW.

Characterizes the treatment of Chaucer in the critical journal Scrutiny as a "deliberate fragmentation" of his works in an effort to convey upon the poet an ahistorical and timeless sense of value and authority.

Walker assesses the three allusions to the Trojan War in NPT and argues that they underlie parallel concerns in Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare emulates Chaucer's skeptical attitude toward the Trojan War.

Speght's edition of Chaucer (1602) included an extensive glossary of "hard words." Later lexicographers, including the editors of the OED, have missed the fact that Jacobean dictionaries of "hard words" borrowed extensively from Speght--entries,…

Describes political and military events involving Edward, the Black Prince, Pedro of Castile, and his rivals that led up to the military campaign of 1366. Suggests the nature and timing of Chaucer's likely participation in these events, perhaps as an…

Argues that Chaucer's role in Spain in 1366 was as a "confidential messenger" of the Black Prince, adducing historical and biographical evidence as well as the attitude expressed about Pedro of Spain in MkT 7.2375ff.

Describes a pedagogical experiment featuring a mock trial of Chaucer--asking students to prosecute and defend Chaucer on the charge of perpetrating medieval antifeminism through his characterization of women in CT and TC.

A collection of essays from the conference "Chaucer at Albany II" places Chaucer's works in both medieval and modern contexts. Some essays apply contemporary critical theories, e.g., Harold Bloom on the anxiety of influence, while others reinterpret…

Assesses Chaucer's sense of poetic tradition in HF, arguing that while following Dante's use of the vernacular, Chaucer eschewed Italian emulation of classical models because he distrusted "classical pretensions to artistic or moral superiority."

Chaucer is an "accommodated deconstructionist" rather than a politically committed one. Nonetheless, HF goes beyond mere textual play to historical reference, and Chaucer wavers in the uneasy contradiction between the formal presence of authority…

Reviews Priscilla Martin's "Chaucer's Women: Nuns, Wives, and Amazons" and Helen Cooper's "The Canterbury Tales," arguing that they "provide a good indication of some of the newest orthodoxies in Chaucer studies."

Chaucerians have reached no consensus on specific written sources for NPT, PardT, MilT, and RvT, similarities between which and their Ozark analogues (all reprinted here) point to a common source in Anglo-American oral folktales.

Justifies accepting PF 99-105 as the more likely immediate source of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" 1.4.70-88 than Claudian's "De Sextu Consultat Honorii Augusti," Preface, 3-10, the ultimate source of both English texts.

Reports on pedagogical applications of digitized images and concordancing programs in the Chaucer classroom. The goal is to improve students' abilities to perform research and to read closely.

Set in "a sort of suburban underworld," SNT and CYT treat "subtle threats" to the established values and ideologies of the city. For Chaucer, "the potential for growth and change...lay beyond the comfortably reassuring town walls in the suburban…

In this first presidential address to the New Chaucer Society, Professer Donaldson wittily summarizes the 20th-century conflict of opinion regarding Chaucer's work to conclude that Chaucer is partly to blame for the confusion. Like all great poets…

Examines "afterlives" of Chaucer created by post-medieval scholars using digital tools. Argues for attention to digital engagements with Chaucer, such as "Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog," as having significant existences separate from a historical…

Explores how Chaucer used Petrarch, Petrarch used Dante, and Dante used Virgil: a sequence of influence that underpins Chaucer's "conception of renown" and encouraged him to lay claim to belonging to the schiera (band) of famous poets. Discusses…

Editorial commentary on the joys of teaching, using as a touchstone Chaucer's Clerk—one who would "gladly" teach.

Reale summarizes the versions of Chaucer's tales that abound on the internet, suggesting that each has its own agenda for re-presenting Chaucer.

Short introduction to various theories of laughter, followed by a brief analysis of laughter in MilT and TC.

Documentary source book of 493 archival records that pertain to Chaucer's "career as a courtier, diplomat, and civil servant," arranged topically in thirty-one categories from Chaucer's ancestors to his death; includes a "Chronological Table" of the…

Studies the treatment of manuscripts in the MED, especially those containing Chaucer's works. Detects potential for confusion in the use of the double-dating system (manuscript and composition dates, not always consistently cited), and in the…