Browse Items (16012 total)

Investigates the reference to the "Judeo-Roman historian Josephus" in HF, 1429–36, exploring how his authority varies in the Middle Ages "depending on the extent to which he is understood as a Christian or a Jew," and showing how, in Chaucer's…

Interprets Form Age as a topical, even occasional, poem, rather than as a translation from Boethius, investigating its manuscript contexts, identifying echoes from Tibellius, Ovid, Jean de Meun, Eustace Deschamps, and Sted, and arguing that the poem…

Argues that an analogue (perhaps source) of Chaucer's image of a coin-shaped ("farthing") spot of grease in his GP description of the Prioress (1.134) is "Clef d'amors," line 3236. The play in the French may derive from a punning echo of "speck" and…

Suggests that the portentous oak of PardT 6.765 (no species mentioned in analogues) gains dimension in light of Chaucer having been robbed at a "fowle oak" in Kent in 1390, and also suggests, therefore, that Chaucer must have been written PardT after…

Explicates the phrase "withouten coppe" (FranT 5.492) as meaning "outside of the cup," conveying that Aurelius drank his penance to the fullest extent.

Disagrees with editorial explanations of FrT 3.1314, arguing that the subject of the sentence, a "composite sinner," is the recipient of "pecunyal peyne." Offers supporting evidence from several contemporary sources.

In addition to sections on editions; bibliographies, indexes, and other research tools; general criticism and cultural background; language, metrics, and studies of manuscripts; and the springtime setting, this bibliography of 1,387 entries includes…

Examines Chaucer's use of first-person narration, "traditional themes," "rhetorical principles," and "artistic structure" in GP, exploring the pilgrimage and spring motifs, the chain of being, and connections between this chain, the serial…

Explores details, emphases, ironies, and double ironies in the GP description of the Manciple and in ManPT, characterizing him as "shrewd," "smug," and "indiscrete"--a "successful rascal" who aspires to "gentil" status, is "insecure," and overly…

Argues that "gnof" (MilT 1.3188) is Chaucer's neologism, clarifying the trouble his scribes had with the word, detailing its later use in English (especially in association with Kett's Rebellion of 1575), and establishing the likelihood that Chaucer…

Considers HF to be an occasional poem, perhaps "written for Christmas Revels at the Inner Temple," and reads its three parts an "an allegorical representation of the trivium" that pertains to poetry, "testing the trivium, and rejecting it, and…

Analyzes Boccaccio's impact on Chaucer in HF. Presents literary history of Boccaccio's "Amorosa vision" and descriptions of Chaucer's trips to Italy, and claims that "Chaucer tries out an array of Boccaccian approaches to Dantean questions and…

Shows that Chaucer's depiction of Fame in HF has several parallels with the depiction of her in the French "Ovide moralisé": use of anaphora in amplification of Ovid's original, Fame's role of judge and her "aura of authority," and overt concern…

HF refutes rumors about Chaucer's libertinism. It raises the question of love's definition through the story of Dido and Aeneas in Book I, the remonstrations of the Eagle in Book II, and the scandals in the houses of Fame and Rumour in Book III.

Identifies several instances of Chaucer's uses of lists of impossibilities (rhetorical "adynata" or "impossibilia") in "personal laments and exclamations of fidelity and sincerity" (TC, BD, Anel), giving classical precedents in Virgil's "Eclogues"…

Interprets "chiere" of KnT 1.2683 as "frame of mind" or "state of feeling," and maintains that this obviates the question of the whether or not the preceding two lines on the fickleness of women are spurious.

Argues that the subject matter, irony, depiction of love, and touches of humor in KnT are "in no way inappropriate" to the characterization of the Knight evident elsewhere in CT

Argues that by "idealizing" reality "into unreality" KnT opens the "question of appearance and reality," a recurrent concern throughout CT which is resolved only in ParsT.

Proposes that KnT has a "two-fold focus: one centering on theories of human nature--Franciscan, Dominican, and Chaucerian; the other centering on theories of valid language use, whether literal alone or figurative as well." Allegory is not the right…

Suggests that the notion of making a "virtue of necessity" in TC and Theseus's "First Mover" speech reflect late-medieval nominalism and express concern with the precariousness of human life and its relation to "Ultimate Justice." Ending on a…

In addition to overt allusions to law and its practitioners and his depictions of legal proceedings, Chaucer weaves legal terminology into his texts and uses "embedded" references to real court cases in developing his plots and characters. Advocates…

Analyzes the "Legend of Dido" in LGW to reveal how narrative serves as a "cognitive tool for shaping worldviews" held within cultural communities. Discusses the "cognitive-cultural underpinnings" and strategies Chaucer uses to tell a fragmentary…

Chaucer's version of MLT is more like Trevet's than the folktale version identified as "The Handless Maiden." If Chaucer knew this folktale version, his choice of Trevet's more sophisticated version is another tribute to his art.

Identifies several medieval analogues to the sentiment expressed in ManT 311-13, the earliest being the "Carmen as Astralabium Filium," attributed to Peter Abelard.

Discusses the "framing elements" of Mel, its glosses in the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts (comparing them with those in ParsT), and the codicological contexts of the five fifteenth-century manuscripts of the Tale that exist "outside the story…