Browse Items (16328 total)

Reproduces portraits or busts of twenty-four English poets, from Chaucer to T. S. Eliot, held in England's National Portrait Gallery, with a very brief biography and short selection of poetry for each. The portrait of Chaucer is labeled as "By an…

A biography of Richard Stury, based on public records, with recurrent attention to his forty-year acquaintance with Chaucer as friend and associate. Touches on the "long unsolved question of Chaucer's relation to Lollardy."

Includes fourteen translations of materials from medieval British literary sources, from the "Mabinogion" to Thomas Malory, selected and adapted for a juvenile audience, and illustrated by Charles Keeping. Includes a translation of FranT (pp.…

In TC and "several important" tales of CT, Chaucer expresses more "confidence in human nature" than do Langland or the "Pearl"-poet in their works. He indicates the human need for divine Providence and assurance that "God will not use his absolute…

Explores Chaucer's and Lydgate's assumptions about their audience's knowledge of history, and discusses how and to what extent it may indicate irony in KnT, MkT, TC, and several works by Lydgate.

Studies Chaucer's similes and metaphors to trace the "development of imagery in each of [his] works" from BD through CT, suggesting that Chaucer shows a "progressive awareness of the image as an essential tool of his art." Results of statistical…

Assumes that the Death and the Old Man in PardT are "one and the same person," and provides evidence from Scandinavian literature that Odin was an analogous figure, perhaps even a distant source, although Christianized.

Treats KnT as a traditional, conservative work, elevated in tone and style and dependent on "French and Italian traditions of eloquence." Conversely GP is the "most original of Chaucer's poems," innovative in its "mingling" of "praise and blame"…

Describes the "typological" uses of time in the mystery cycles, the "biological time" of the heroes' actions in most romances, and the much more complex concern with time in TC, where "all action and characters" are placed in time and are given…

Examines "the relationships existing among the printed editions" of CT from Caxton through Tyrwhitt, based on comparisons of their versions of GP and considering their uses of prior texts, emendation policies, and editorial innovations.

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

Treats Mel as a "consolatio," not an allegory, of the same genre as Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "designed to cure an excess of wrath" and to promote "forgiveness." Identifies ways that Mel engages thematically with the other tales in…

A selection of critical responses to Chaucer's works from his late contemporaries until 1968. Mostly excerpted from longer works, the selections are arranged in three categories: "Contemporaneous Criticism" (Deschamps, Usk, Lydgate, and Hoccleve);…

Defines parody and surveys "all of the major literary parodies in Middle English, Old French, and Middle German," including "three little-known anti-courtly parodies by Hermann von Sachsenheim and Geoffrey Chaucer." Includes comments on ManT.

Encourages separation of teller and tale in interpreting CT, reading MerT in light of its sources but not MerP. The narrator of the Tale identifies more with Justinus than with January and shows "a measure of sympathy" for May. In this way the Tale…

Side one includes a recording of Chaucer's MercB, set to music by Vaughn Williams, and sung by Lois Winter (soprano), accompanied by Marvin Morgenstern (violin), Hiroko Yajima Rhodes (violin), and John Goberman (cello). An inner sheet includes the…

Argues that both TC (particularly the Epilogue) and LGW evince Chaucer's "good-natured humor" which is "never vicious" but rather "shows a warm and compassionate understanding of the foibles of human beings, regardless of their sex." LGW is a "mock…

A textbook anthology of British and American poetry, arranged topically, with a glossary of poetic terms, a section entitled "About the Poets," and a first-line index. In a chapter labeled "Human Condition" includes a modern English translation of…

Sound recording of musical stage play, with music by Richard Hill and John Hawkins, and lyrics by Nevill Coghill. The cast includes George Rose, Hermione Baddeley, Martyn Green, and others.

Sound recording of the "Smash Hot Musical Play," with music by Richard Hill and John Hawkins, lyrics by Nevill Coghill, and the "Full Cast" of the stage production, including Wilfrid Brambell, Jessie Evans, Kenneth J. Warren, and others.

Suggests that the "Ovide Moralisé" (14.827-30) is the "probable source" of the reference to Elysium in TC 4.789-90.

Considers the fittingness of the MkT to its teller, commenting on genre (advice to princes and tragedy), themes (fortune and the uncertainties of life), variety and unity, the GP description of the Monk, and the responses of the Knight and the Host…

Comments on the Host's "outrage" and the "silence" of the other pilgrims at the end of PardT, attributing them both to failure to "separate art from reality."

Shows that the legend of St. Nicholas may be a source of the detail about the marrying young women in Chaucer's description of the Friar in GP 1.212-13.

Explores the possible originations of select rhyming pairs in Chaucer's works, especially those involving proper names, observing Latin and Continental precedents and also commenting on recurrent non-onomastic rhymes that involve semantic…