Browse Items (16328 total)

Considers PrPT in light of the GP description of the Prioress and ShT, arguing that the tone, style, verse form, and liturgical echoes of PrPT are appropriate to the vocation of the Prioress and create a powerful impression of strength, humility, and…

Sketches the obscurities of Pandarus's character and motivations in TC, and, examining patterns of imagery and allusion, argues that he is both a voyeur and a Tantalus-figure whose "punishment [is] to endure for ever the agonies of unfulfilled…

Argues that the "fabliau of the 'Sot chevalier' by Gautier le Leu" is a source for the branding scene of MilT and for the summary of action at the end of the Tale.

Tabulates and analyzes the scribal variants of modal auxiliaries in CT, commenting on the implications for understanding late-medieval English usage.

Adduces details from MLT, PardT, Anel, SqT, FranT, Purse, MkT, and PhyT to show that Chaucer was influenced, not only by Trevet's Constance narrative, but by his "Cronicles" more broadly.

Thirty three essays by various authors on wide-ranging topics, presented in honor of Rudolph Willard. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Studies in Language, Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later under Alternative…

Describes the episodic symmetrical structure of MLT; comments on the characterization of Constance; identifies the rhetorical uses of occupatio and elaboration in the Tale; and (in footnote 1) summarizes its concern with astrology, fate, and Boethian…

Reads KnT as an expression of the narrator's pessimistic yet stoic view of human "travails and uncertainties," evident in the prevailing "sense of the insignificance of the major actions" of the plot, and reinforced by grim humor and by the tension…

Describes and assesses Blake's understanding of Chaucer and his Canterbury pilgrims, and surmises (in Appendix A) that Blake used Tyrwhitt's edition of CT. Includes reproductions of Blake's engraving of Chaucer's Pilgrims and of Thomas Stothard's…

Analyzes "rime riche" (identical rhyme) in Gower's poetry, focusing on the "abundance" of rime-riche couplets in "Confessio Amantis," and discussing a number of points of comparison and contrast with Chaucer's practice in his verse. Revised version:…

Identifies a French prose version (1882) of a West-African tale that is analogous to PardT and perhaps translated first from Arabic into Fula (Peuls) when Moslems entered the area.

Facsimile reproduction of Greaves' grammar (1594), which was the second grammar of English to be printed; includes as an appendix a six-page "Vocabula Chauceriana," the first glossary of Chaucer's lexicon.

Contrasts the Wife of Bath's uses in WBP of the Pauline image of marital debt with commentaries found in St. Jerome and Thomas Aquinas, showing how she uses it to claim male debt only.

Regards the detail of covering the child's eyes in MLT 2.840-41 as a "homely touch" of pathos, perhaps drawn from child-care advice found in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, "De Proprietatibus Rerum."

Argues that Chaucer is "multivoiced" and a "realist par excellence" whose "verism . . . encompasses minor elements like obscenity and bawdry." Draws examples from TC and CT, WBPT most extensively.

Considers Chaucer's "references to time" in TC in light of parallel passages in Boccaccio's "Filostrato," considering variants in TC manuscripts and arguing that Chaucer's concern with time in the poem results from his "desire to portray Criseyde as…

Treats WBPT as an analogue to Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," observing shared "allusions, rhetorical formulas, [and] character presentations" as well as the theme of the "problems of marriage." The two works share "many common…

Lyric adaptation of the WBP 3.1-134 in Jamaican dialect.

Lyric poem in first-person voice, with recurrent allusions to the WBP and GP description of the Wife of Bath, including gapped teeth, five husbands, and a physical battle with husband number four.

Identifies the Beryn Scribe as the scribe of Princeton University, MS 100, as well as other CT fragments. Maintains that the Beryn Scribe worked with other scribes in a scriptorium based in London to disseminate multiple copies of vernacular…

By paying attention to apocryphal texts such as "The Plowman's Tale," readers can understand the appeal of continuations of CT. As CT is an amorphous text, reconsidering medieval writers and readers of apocrypha helps scholars rethink the potential…

Intentional scribal adaptations of the "Siege of Rouen" in continuations of the "Brut" demonstrate that manuscript differences are often intentional and not "innocent." Raises anew questions of what it means for Chaucer to insist that Adam write…

Discusses how Chaucer, while aware of Boccaccio's text, continually downplays Priam's political side in order to emphasize "his interpersonal or familial bond," thus seeking "to interpret events and characters in terms of their most immediate…

Linking the idea of intention to the moral self in the medieval understanding of the subject, considers TC along with Margery Kempe and "The Testimony of William Thorpe."

Identifies the classical sources (Virgil and Ovid) and explores the implications of two tree metaphors that Pandarus uses to encourage Troilus to court Criseyde.