Browse Items (16328 total)

Demonstrates Chaucer's extensive dependence upon French love poetry, tracing the development of "dits amoreux" from Guillaume de Lorris's portion of the "Roman de la Rose" to Chaucer's contemporaries and identifying where in BD Chaucer was influenced…

Interpretive, evaluative, tale-by-tale reading of CT, focusing on how Chaucer's "mingling" of various styles, tones, genres, conventions, source materials, and world views come together as a unifying perspective that supersedes any one perspective .…

Contrasts MerT, PrT, and PardT with their respective analogues, contending that Chaucer's Tales are inconsistent in time, setting, and character motivation, reflecting "Chaucer's lack of concern for real people and real objects." Similarly in TC,…

Offers a "psychography" of Chaucer, using biographical records, contemporaneous events, and Chaucer's works to describe his appearance, habits, personality, opinions, and attitudes. Focuses on the personae in Chaucer's literary works; on his…

Adduces several passages from "thirteenth century 'De Arte Venandi cum Avibus' of Frederick of Hohenstaufen" to argue that in the setting and details of his bird parliament in PF Chaucer "may have been concerned as much with authentic bird lore as…

Explores the thematic implications of several verbal ambiguities or double meanings in KnT: "array" (dress and predicament), "hert" (heart and hart), "wele" (joy and wheel), nuances of "turne," "boone" (reward and bone), and "righte way" in…

Addresses the "intentional ambiguity" of PF, arguing that it results from the tension between "discursive" and "non-discursive" aspects of the poem, a distinction derived from Susanne Langer. Uses a variety of lexical patterns and oppositions to show…

Describes how the "tavern vices" of PardT (gluttony, blasphemy, gambling) "delineate the characters" of the three revelers and reveal their stupid and immoral inability to recognize the literal and the figurative meanings of death, properly…

Describes Chaucer's use in TC of the "Editorial Omniscient" point of view, comments on the relationship between the narrator and the writer, and exemplifies the various and changing attitudes of the narrator: compassion, helplessness in the face of…

Identifies details in the GP description of the Prioress that are inconsistent with the Benedictine Rule and indicate satirically that she is courtly, a "worldly woman dressed in a Prioress's habit."

Discusses four sexual puns in WBPT: on purse/chest, candle-lighting, flour and grinding, and "borel" or coarse cloth.

Provides context for the Parson's image of a she-ape in the "fulle of the moon" (10.424), showing how the image deprecates the "purpose as well as appearance" of the "fashionably-dressed man."

Provides point-by-point contrasting details and themes from SNT and CYT to argue that they were composed as a pair, wedded by a "theory of contraries." Focuses on fire, sight, work, the theme of God's will, the language and imagery of alchemy, and…

Argues that George Gascoigne's reading of TC inspired aspects of his "Adventures of Master F. J." [or F. I.]. In particular, identifies parallels to the scene Troilus's fainting (TC 3.1092), the character of Criseyde, the "self-effacing pose" of…

An account of London in the late fourteenth century, including descriptions of its historical topography and architecture, the city's customs, a chronicle of its major events and history, and its role as an intellectual center. Chaucer is mentioned…

Explains that Pertelote's reference to "lawriol" (7.2963) should be glossed as a vomit-inducer rather than a bowel laxative.

Comprises appreciative discussions of sixty "classics" of world literature, from "Gilgamesh" to the plays of Chekhov, including a discussion of CT (pp. 141-45) that emphasizes Chaucer's skills of characterization and comments on relations between…

Questions whether Troilus has gained wisdom by the end of TC and explores what is evident as true wisdom in PF. Although Troilus's laughter indicates his contempt for the world, the hero does not realize fully the hierarchical nature of love that is…

Explores the generally negative connotations and nuances of the lexicon, details, and imagery of the Monk's description in GP, providing context from medieval literature and exegetical commentary to argue that the Monk is "corrupt, gluttonous,…

Traces several iconographical, etymological, and punning associations of cherubs with redness, commenting on confusion with seraphs, and suggesting that these associations underlie details of the Summoner's description in GP.

Argues that the repetition of the word "entente" in FrT affects the Tale's "characterization, plotting, and pervasive irony," and indicates "one of the fundamental theological dimensions of the piece"--disguised evil.

Shows that the first printed version of ABC (in Thomas Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's works) is essentially a copy of the version found in Cambridge University Library MS Gg.4.27. Also considers Speght's treatment of his source, the "significance…

Describes Chaucer's use of "Thise" in PardT 6.661 as a marker of stylistic transition--from the "rhetorical tirade" about sins to the "more intimate and often colloquial" tale of the rioters. The usage anticipates modern English.

Proposes that the "greyn" in the mouth of the clergeon in PrT (7.622) may be related to a common medieval medical prescription for various maladies, including loss of speech: a "castorea."

An anthology of previously published materials, including selections from Boccaccio (on the Black Death) and Froissart (on the Peasants' Revolt), essays on cultural backgrounds to the fourteenth century (imagination, technology, science, courtly…