Browse Items (16012 total)

Interprets Pandarus's reference to "corones tweyne" (TC 2.1735) in light of lapidarian tradition, suggesting that it refers to the two kinds of "caraunius" (thunderstone), differently colored gemstones that emblematize Criseyde's beauty, lightning,…

Chaucer often treats of the discrepancy between intent and words, especially in GP 725-42, PardT, and ParsT. Philosophically, Chaucer's view of language is that of a Christian Platonist; he aspires toward a linguistic realism in which intent informs…

Linguistic and philosophical notions underlying the idea of "cosyn to the dede" fascinate Chaucer and Jean de Meun, who follow Plato and Augustine in accepting that signs reveal ultimate meaning and that myths relate to eternal ideals.

Chaucer's office as Justice of the Peace necessitated his close familiarity with the forms and styles of court proceedings available to us in the records of the "Court Baron." Braswell notes in such records the frequency of figures similar to…

Although giving the impression of belonging to the world of courtesy, "deerne love" is actually more pertinent to the activities detailed in fabliaux. But secrecy, even when it would appear to be taken seriously, causes destruction of love and…

Offers meteorological and folkloric evidence that March was known as a dry month in medieval England, lending verisimilitude to GP 1.2.

Explores possibilities for verbal and imagistic influence of Virgil's Georgics I and II on GP and for thematic influence of Georgics IV on NPT.

Examination of Cicero's "De amicitia" and the "Somnium Scipionis" clarifies the references in Scog to love, poetry,friendship, and natural law.

Scog is successful as an expression of courtly friendship in the particular social circumstances of civil servants' lives.

Parodied in MilT, exposed as "disordered and violent" in RvT, Theseus's "faire cheyne of love" (KnT 2991) is the first of several "images of mediation which cluster in interlocking fashion" throughout CT. Like other comedies of mediation, CT reveals…

The word may denote the better of two kinds of carts in normal manorial use: a cart used for hauling outside the manor.

"Former Age" emphasizes not so much former innocence as prelapsarian lack of technical knowledge. Though the speaker takes his stance between the first age and the present, he employs ironic diction, aligning himself with the latter. Besides…

Transcribes witnesses to three of Chaucer's short poems--"For," "Truth" (both from Leiden University Library Vossius 9), and Gent (from Cambridge University Library Gg 4 9.27.1b)--all previously unpublished and here supplied from, perhaps, "the final…

Those who insist on reading historical allusions into For's concluding stanza miss C̀haucer's subtle plea that charity, and not Fortune's favor, be the motivating force in human affairs.

FranT was influenced by "Sir Orfeo," especially in the illustrations produced for Aurelius's benefit by the Clerk of Orleans.

Treats clapping as a spell-breaking device, magic shipwrecks, chastity, and adultery as "reverse correspondences" in FranT and "The Tempest."

Wicher tallies a number of folktale motifs in FranT and argues that they are rationalized or obscured in ways that qualify the exemplary value of the Tale. Central is the motif of the "rash promise given to a supernatural suitor," with Arveragus,…

In FranT, the seriatim pity of the characters makes it possible for others to move through the worldly truth that it is necessary to suffer in time, toward the greater truth of unchanging stability. The rocks represent the need for worldly…

The Summoner addresses the devil in formal pronouns (you) until he learns the fiend's true identity; then, he speaks to him informally (thou). The devil, however, is consistently formal in his own usage.

The term "rebec" or "ribib(l)e", used by the Summoner to insult the old woman, meant fiddle, and then a woman with a shrill voice.

By the fourteenth century "fin amor" was associated with "legitimate married love and...Christian charity." Thus, when the God of Love in the Prologue to LGW refers to "fyn loving," Chaucer's meaning (whether ironic or not) is that of an ideal love.…

Treats GP as a record of social history, focusing on the economic information available in the descriptions of the pilgrims, particularly as it is evident in the work they do and the status they hold in relation to land, the Church, and trade. Treats…

In GP 6 "inspired" evokes the Vulgate Gen. 2:7, suggesting Lenten spiritual renewal and the natural regenerative effect of the west wind in springtime.

"Burdoun" as an obscene pun in Chaucer's description of the Pardoner in the GP is supported in Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and even more strikingly in Wyatt's poem "Ye Old Mule". The latter shows the ribald possibilities of the word as…

Nakao examines uses of gentil in TC, MerT, and FranT, gauging the level of subjectivity involved on the part of the character, the narrator, and/or the author, modified by the audience's subjective understanding. Poses a "double-prism" structure…