Browse Items (16035 total)

Provides "a critical text and close textual study" of BD, based on Fairfax MS 16, and accompanied by full apparatus.

Discusses the concerns with suffering and pity in BD as aspects of universal nature that binds together everything and thereby makes possible the consolation in the poem for the Black Knight (John of Gaunt), the Dreamer (Chaucer), and the audience.…

The body of this dissertation consists of a chronological compendium made up of an individual abstract-like annotation for each significant piece of scholarship (published before 31 December, 1969) which has treated BD during the first 600 years…

Probably written before Chaucer knew Boethius well, BD is a courtly poem offering the consolation of art, the solace that one can achieve through "makyng" or listening to poetry. The alleged Boethian aspects of BD reflect the French…

BD is about art as well as consolation--the art that engages real attention with its game and objectifies grief only to escape into its own fixity and so shatter finally on the existentiality of loss.

Assesses various historical documents that pertain to the marital life and legacy of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, arguing that the evidence indicates John was dedicated to Blanche, even after her death.

Challenges traditional perceptions of Mars and Ven as separate poems, arguing that they are better recognized as a single work, "The Broche of Thebes." Traces the history of scribal, editorial, and critical receptions of the complaints, analyzing…

The symbolic meaning of the color brown in Chaucer's works depends on the context in which the word is used. Examples can be noted in TC, BD, Rom, HF, and CT.

Examines GP 369-84 in light of the guild feud in London in the 1370s and 1380s, reviewing opinions of Kuhl and Fullerton, and Skeat. "In his attitudes toward the guildsmen...the pilgrim Chaucer shows himself as more petty-bourgeois than bourgeois."

The yeoman's discourse on alchemy is carefully crafted by Chaucer: each "occupatio" is followed by a catalogue ("descripcio") and "poynt" ("sententia"). The technique enables Chaucer to establish the rambling character of the yeoman.

The Summoner's "bokeleer" of cake is a hypocritical parody of the eucharistic Host ritual. A magic object, consecrated bread was used in "bread cures"--the Summoner hopes to use his "Host-bread shield" to cure his "sawcefleem."

Surveys the sales performance of various editions of Chaucerian texts, concentrating on recent sales and auctions and on market values. Includes a brief survey of Chaucer's works and editions and responds to the auction of Caxton's first edition for…

Critiques the inconsistencies and overall lack of unity in CT, contrasting it with the structural and thematic wholeness of HF and TC, and castigating the sententiousness of Mel, ParsT, and Ret. Attributes the lack of unity and the inconclusiveness…

Also in Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 53 (1983): 351-69.

In contrast to the prevailing critical view that Chaucer eschewed the use of Arthurian romance material, two Arthurian themes--the quest and amorous fatality--become transposed as pilgrimage and marriage in CT. The Tale of Arveragus, told by the…

Exemplifies the variety of Chaucer's comedy in CT, particularly the GP, and comments on the compatibility of "Christianity and the comic vision."

Reviews approaches to CT, esp. Donald Howard, "The Idea of the Canterbury Tales" and advocates return to CT with the freshness of the amateur.

Describes five medieval ways of looking at time (computistical, philosophical, mechanical, astrolabic, kalendric) and examines three Chaucerian passages that appear to indicate exact dates and time of day. Concludes that each passage presents an…

Chaucer's translations of key phrases in the Griselda story reveal his use of the Boccaccio source material as a way to underscore the "complexity" of the story and the varied authorial voices involved in translation.

The two modes of ClT must not be confused. The allegorical mode culminates in the Clerk's moral of Griselda as an example for all Christians, male or female; the literal mode culminates in the Clerk's implicit criticism of Walter's imperiousness as…

Dante's advocacy of absolute rule as necessary for a peaceful state ("De monarchia") was opposed by other fourteenth-century Italian political theorists who saw such a state as tyrannical. Boccaccio's treatment of Griselda in "Decameron" implicitly…

Chaucer's sympathy toward women is questionable, given the context of ClT and Walter's dominance over Griselda.

Examines the tension in ClT between human pathos and clerkly training and intelligence, reading the combination as a depiction of late-medieval "clerkishness." Additions to his sources and the use of "specialized vocabulary" make Chaucer's tale…

Despite recent scholarship of MilT that equates Alison's "pa" (line 3709) with the Wife of Bath's "ba" (WBT, line 433), the two words should be distinguished. "Pa" seems to be a shortening of "pax," the liturgical embrace of Christian love. In…

Pity's "double life" as person and quality "calls attention to the mechanics" of allegory and to one's "ordinary" experience of pity; through word play, pity is both dead to the frustrated lover and alive to others.