Browse Items (15542 total)

Chaucer drew on two classical sources, Virgil's "Aeneid" and Ovid's "Heroides," to illustrate two themes. In HF, complex characterizations of Venus, Aeneas, and Dido illustrate different meanings of Latin "fame"; in LGW, Dido's queenliness is…

Anatomizes the tradition of the classical epic in Western literature, from Homer to Tolstoy and Thomas Mann, tracing the "Alexandrian" mode that originated with Callimachus and his school and runs counter to the more strictly restrained tradition of…

In PF, Chaucer's Nature fulfills a double role: a divinity who presides over weddings (classical) and a mediatrix for the Christian diety (early modern).

Surveys classical concepts of authority and Chaucer's uses of classical authorities, arguing that although Chaucerian allusions reflect medieval continuity with Stoicism and Epicurianism, the poet uses classical authorities, especially Ovid, in…

Included in this "practical book about leadership" are claims that CT reveals that "people can't be stereotyped" because they are essentially paradoxical. Comments most extensively on the Wife of Bath, who is "incapable of being classified, sorted,…

Argues that TC, in its "integration of style, structure, and theme with meaning," is best regarded as "transitionally Renaissance in its entire import." Articulates differences between medieval and Renaissance cultures, and argues that TC better…

The obscure circumstances surrounding the three marriages of Joan of Kent are clarified by reference to the original documents. In 1340, at age 12, she secretly married Sir Thomas Holland. In 1341, while Holland was crusading in Prussia, she was…

Argues that Chaucer encourages his audience to "view the affair between Troilus and Criseyde as a clandestine marriage rather than as an illicit love affair," different from the analogous relationship in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and consistent with…

A Lacanian analysis of ShT questions "the position of the speaking subject within the network of symbolic exchange. The narrative imbrecates three symbolic systems: speech, money, and sexual division . . . synonymously, as metaphors of each other,…

Examines the ways in which the Legend of Ariadne in LGW reflects Chaucer's concerns over the cyclical and repeating tragedies of history.

In TC Chaucer employs a series of circular images--rings, city walls, seasonal cycles, Fortune's wheel, and super-lunar spheres--to reinforce his themes of sexual love, imprisonment, and ephemerality, and to accentuate the differences between earthly…

Considers several features of MilT, including diction, arguing that MilT is a "Chaucerian fabliau."

Examination of tax records gives a picture of the distribution of clerical personnel in London around 1380.

Describes key clerical figures in CT and exemplifies details of worship, parish social life, and the Church in daily life. Includes color illustrations and hypertext links to key terms and concepts.

Assesses the utility of applying Bakhtinian analysis to Chaucer's works and examines the monologia of ClT in light of the "Tale's" intersections of "Ecclesiastes time" and figural time.

Lydgate's references to Chaucer's poetry help scholars date the writings of the later poet.

Adds the Cardigan MS (University of Texas) and British Library Egerton MS 2864 to Matheson's list of manuscripts that include "peculiar versions" of Brut.

Chaucer's version of the Ceyx-Alcyone story differs from its predecessors in ways that emphasize how love can transcend death, helping to make the consolation of the poem particularly Christian.

Summaries of literary works, plus study questions designed for self-teaching, ranging from works of Bede and Caedmon to those of Philip Larkin and Edna O'Brien, with a summary of biblical plots, Christian history, hymns, and a glossary of terms. Two…

Includes discussion of relations between "storm motifs" and "traditional attitudes towards love (conceived broadly as the relationship between man and the objects of his desire)" in various medieval texts, including BD, TC, MilT, MLT, and ABC.

Assesses astrological imagery in works by Chaucer, Lydgate, Henryson, Lyly, Greene, and Spenser, including discussion of how the zodiacal signs of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini suggest "symbolic re-enactment of sin" and provide "ironic commentary" in…

Twenty-six essays and thirteen appendices explore how Christianity underlies Western attitudes. The section "Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)" (pp. 67-75) reads Ret in light of ParsT and Mel as a mild account of misconduct in which Chaucer is guided more…

Surveys the dilemmas experienced by Criseyde, Troilus, Chaucer, and the reader in TC, relating them all to the conflicts between classical beauty and Christian truth.

The squire in GP wears red and white apparel which critics generally associate with springtime and fashionable dress. Because soon-to-be knights wore these colors in the medieval knighting ritual, this chivalric association of the colors further…

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…