Browse Items (16035 total)

Assesses MilT as an "anti-authoritarian" complaint against the estates--the clergy, the courtly aristocracy, the "providers," and women--depicting "the kind of thing the Miller would like to see happen to such people."

Comments on the upbringing of young people in CT. Mentioned in only three lines, the "mayde child" in ShT exemplifies the late medieval practice of wardship. The words signify the callous immorality of the guardian who, like the governesses…

Argues that ManT contributes to the theme of the linguistic slipperiness in CT, depicting how language fails to reflect reliably the "actual nature of the world."

ManT expresses ambivalence about verbal signification and asserts the power of poetry. The role of Phoebus (a figure of poetry), imagery of caging, the figure of the crow, and violations of poetic decorum affirm humanist poetics, despite the…

Citing examples from feudal law and practice, Silar argues that MLT 2.168 has a specific legal sense and should be translated "[Custance's] hand, in which the right to grant estates in the feudal tenure of frankalmoign."

MLT is a test case of Chaucer's use of Christian materials directed toward a "new human center." Christ and Christianity are uniquely transformed into a pervasive humanism, through Chaucer's tolerant ambivalence.

The long tradition describing the relationship between rhetoric and emotion is reflected in Chaucer's pathetic tales. Particularly in MLT, narrative comment upon the action and vivid description are the conventional strategies used to lead the…

MLT engages with ideas found in Latin and French treatises advocating crusade and assesses the rhetoric and practices of crusades, critiquing their mercantile aims, the ignorance of cultural differences dooming efforts to convert Muslims, and poor…

Many sources and analogues for Chaucer's poem, including the "Roman de la Rose," "Panthere d'amours," "La dance aux aveugles," and "Trionfo d'amore," as well as a reference in his own LGW (G, 403-05), suggest that the "man of great authority" is the…

By dating HF's composition and first public reading in December, 1379, we can see the unfinished last lines as a joke purposely played on Cardinal Pileo's messenger, Nicolo,whose news that no marriage would take place between Richard II and Caterina…

Shows that Chaucer's description of the garden in PF 204-10, part of the tradition of "locus amoenus," also "engages the conventional elements and rhetorical style of medieval pictures of heaven or paradise." Such adjustments to Boccaccio's…

LGW demonstrates the fundamental importance of the tale or story at the end of the Middle Ages.

In this century discussions of LGW have centered on two points: the historical occasion of the poem and its significance as a stage in Chaucer's artistic development. Not until the last decade has criticism concerned itself with the artistry of the…

Middle English "hap" develops a network of meanings among texts--from providential in "Patience"; to Chaucer's Boethian applications in TC; to the varied ill luck, astrological destiny, and providence of Malory--thus demonstrating the impossibility…

Identifies five structural units in the narrative of the KnT and reads them as a unified, seriatim manifestation of a world that is "tyrannized by mutability," resistant to individual and corporate efforts to find or impose order, and sensible only…

A comma at the end of line 2639 suggests that Emetreus has treacherously struck Palamon. Editorial punctuation could be contrary to Chaucer's intention, which may have been to leave the sense ambiguous. We need an edition of Chaucer without modern…

The tournament described in Part IV is archaic. Chaucer's purpose is to dissociate the Knight from the ideals of his age and thus align the tale with its narrator's portrait in the GP as an implicit reproval of the Hundred Years' War.

Four dreams help structure TC: Criseyde's about Pandarus and about the eagle; Troilus's about his fall and about the boar. The dreams reveal character: Criseyde's dreams cause no narrative conflict; Troilus's become an essential part of his story.

Describes the shifts in perspective and changes in the point of view of the narrator in TC, arguing that they guide the reader to the outlook that concludes the poem, particularly through allusions to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

HF is a poem about the art of poetry, for to be one of "Love's folk" was, in the medieval view, to be a poet also.

The similar scribal features of three manuscripts of CT (Devonshire; Trinity College, Cambridge R.3.3; and Bodleian Rawlinson Poetry 223) have sometimes been attributed to a group of scribes and supervisors. This attribution has been used to support…

The "snow" of food and drink in the Franklin's house evokes manna, which was like hoarfrost in the Bible, and therefore snow in medieval references. The result is eucharistic parody, discrediting the Franklin's feast.

Surveys the narrative techniques of the GP as they set up and anticipate those of the entire CT: the suggestiveness of pilgrimage and frame narrative, the impressionistic variety of the pilgrims and their juxtapositions, the naïve but subjective…

Uses of the word "fyn" by Criseyde, Pandarus, and the narrator invite the reader to consider the teleology of the various parts of the work.

In FrT, Chaucer humorously uses references to Dante's story of Frate Alberigo. In reference to "Inferno," canto 33, to reverse Dante's pattern of punishment and sin, Chaucer specifically names Dante; and Chaucer's description of Satan is fashioned…