Browse Items (16089 total)

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…

Shows "how the frequent conflation between anger and revenge has shaped the representations of what we might call anger management in early English literature," from representative Old English works to Shakespeare. Two chapters focusing on Mel, ClT,…

Defines "ballad tragedy" in comparison with late-medieval "De casibus" tragedies, using ballads collected by Francis James Child and, among other works, Chaucer's MkT and TC.

Observes that the "ferses twelve" of BD 723, though impossible on a common chess board, was possible on some medieval boards (especially in Germany) of twelve squares by eight squares, with their twelve pawns. Then argues that the phrase has…

Comments on Chaucer's connections with Spain, focusing on 1366, when he was married and visited Spain, and on 1387, when many died of pestilence after accompanying John of Gaunt on his invasion of Spain in 1386.

Argues that the "Chaucerian narrator could easily and perhaps more readily be called the Chaucerian translator," observing emphasis on translation in LGWP and in Ret, assessing Chaucer's many uses of sources and approaches to translation, including…

Describes the influence of Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" on Chaucer, especially in FranT and WBP, and explains why the Pembrock MS 234, edited here, is "closer to Chaucer's source manuscript than any of the other" forty-two manuscripts considered…

Analyzes Chaucer's use and adaptation of Petrarch's sonnet as the "canticus Troili" in TC, exploring prosodic and contextual features in light of R. A. Shoaf's description of translation as either rape or marriage.

Suggests that Henry Bradshaw looked at CT as an early book in terms of quire structure, which he tried to reconstruct, rather than a topologically real pilgrimage.

Derives a composite "Chaucerian narrator" from the poet's various works, characterized by "naiveté or dull-mindedness," the traditional pose of a "slyly comic writer." Then explores how this nuances of this figure are used to effects in individual…

Argues that Chaucer's influence on Edmund Spenser's "Shepheardes Calendar" is "deeper and far more extensive" than previously recognized. In particular, manipulations of the "hidden narrator" in Spenser are similar to similar techniques in CT and…

Describes a semester-long assignment for use in an undergraduate Chaucer course, with extensive hand-outs, adaptable to in-class, online, and hybrid formats. The end-product is a "commonplace book" or "medieval miscellany" that combines traditional…

Personal account of the author's efforts to write an unorthodox dissertation, including comments about her thwarted intention of using the CT "as a template" for the dissertation.

In the beginning of CT, Chaucer's references and allusions to late-fourteenth-century theater indicate the potentially disruptive nature of dramatic public expression. CT defines the cycle plays as radically other-provincial, civic, and communally…

The "homo ludens" tradition from Erasmus to Huizinga and the recent development of sociobiology reveal three motives in life and art: play, purpose, and game. Critics focusing on allegory or "idea" see purpose as Chaucer's primary motive, but his…

The attribution of "Testament of Love" and "The Plowman's Tale" to Chaucer seems to have had no unfavourable effect, though the acceptance of his authorship of "The Plowman's Tale" may have fueled the belief that Ret was a monkish forgery.