Browse Items (16320 total)

Considers the hermeneutic value of Spearing's concept of "experientiality" in KnT. Defines "roaming" as "an investigation of the relation between bodily experience and language."

Argues that CT and Gower's "Confessio Amantis" take the form of French "dit" poems. Claims that both works fit the genre because they have "sufficient 'dit'-like features."

Begins with an introduction to Spearing's place in scholarship and situates him in the wider context of English and American approaches to texts. Follows with a chronological bibliography of Spearing's published work. This collection of essays is…

Uses selected Arthuriana to describe the development of chivalric romance and offer a descriptive definition of the genre. Emphasizes the non-centered, unstable nature of the romance, although contrasting it with postmodernist works. Notes Chrétien…

Examines the textbook practices of the medieval primary schools--the "grammar schools" or "grammatica"--as underlying the transition from Latin to English as the primary language of "literary" composition in England during the fourteenth century.…

Introduces Chaucer's life and describes each of his major works in chronological order, identifying the French context of BD, the Italian travels and reading that influenced him later, the philosophical concerns of TC, and his self-representations in…

Includes previously published essays on English medieval writers, including Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and Ranulph Higden. Contains one unpublished essay, "Towards a Bohemian Reading of Troilus and Criseyde." Topics are divided into subsections:…

Places the "Gawain"-poet "within the context of Richard II's court and its numerous intrigues" (ix), with chapters on each of his poems (including "Saint Erkenwald"); a life; "A Survey of Sources and Influences"; and a chronology, glossary of…

Argues that Chaucer "contextualizes virtues through narrative." Provides close study of Chaucer's treatment of virtues and ethics in CT and TC.

Examines the narrative and linguistic effects of the Hundred Years War, and claims that the war functions similarly to the Conquest of 1066 as an event that shapes a relationship between word and war and emphasizes the mimetic relationship between…

Surveys the presence and significance of the anus and excrement in medieval culture, particularly the religious thought and literature of the age. Includes brief comments on Chaucer's references to dung, farting, and rear-ends in MilT, MerT, SumP,…

Includes essays on readings of Middle English texts, Middle English syntax, and styles of Middle English alliterative poetry. Chapter 2 concerns reading of one line in GP. Chapter 7 concerns Chaucer's use of the modal auxiliary verb ought. In…

Explores how speakers' "understanding of their world and their lives" in KnT is "encoded in language," focusing on uses of the auxiliary "moten" and connecting it with the theme of necessity in the tale. Concludes that, in the terms of cognitive…

Argues that Chaucer's coinage "blisfulnesse" (also "welefulnesse") in Bo is a calque on the Latin models of "beatitude" and "felicitas," reflecting the poet's sensitivity to complicated conditions of discourse.

Tabulates, describes, and analyzes the interjections used in RvT, summarizing their functions, etymologies, morphologies, and semantics, and using the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse to explore the extent to which the usage in RvT is…

Describes the pragmatic complexities of greetings and farewells and the limitations of using edited literary examples to explore their history. Tabulates and analyzes 140 instances of greetings and farewells in CT, attending to concerns of social…

Compares and contrasts late medieval English adverbial usage in a number of legal texts with those found in a "Reference Corpus," the latter including a number of examples from Chaucer's works.

Includes a chapter entitled "Chaucer's English" (pp. 56-71) that focuses on the growth of the dominance of the East Midland dialect over other dialects of Middle English, with commentary on Chaucer's English and CT, the "Gawain"-poet, Wyclif, the…

Examines the heritage of English from locations throughout Britain. Chapter 20, "Talbot Yard, London SE1: Chaucer and Middle English," comments on Chaucer's influence on the English language.

Shows that "rake" in the proverbial simile "thin as a rake/rail" (first attested in English in the GP description of the Clerk's horse, I.288) means a fodder crib.

Explores the etymology and pronunciations of "Lithuania" in English, including an explanation of why Chaucer renders it "Lettow" in the GP description of the Knight (CT 1.54).

Announces a forthcoming board game, "The Road to Canterbury" (Gryphon Games), created by Alf Seegert. The game focuses on the Pardoner, who is traveling with "seven of Chaucer's pilgrims, each of whom is afflicted with one of the seven deadly sins."

Contends that Cresseid's maturation in Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" includes an evolving contemplation of free will, as one finds in Boethius and in Chaucer's depiction of Troilus in TC.

Considers Shakespeare's intersections with Chaucerian works (e.g., KnT and TC) with regard to the idea of plays gaining regard as literary works in and of themselves.

Assesses the use of secular and sacred topics in Lydgate's corpus, arguing that his expressions in his late poems of regret for writing secular verse in mid-career are sincere. Contrasts Lydgate's "retractions" of his poetry in "Testament" and…