Browse Items (15542 total)

Identifies associations of the name "Huberd" (Hubert) with the Man in the Moon, the magpie, Cain, and theft, arguing that Chaucer's use of it for his Friar (GP 1.269) reveals the character's "inherently evil nature" and the "incongruity" of Chaucer's…

Justifies various differences between FrT and its analogues by attributing them to the literal mindedness of the narrator, "one who takes distinctions seriously."

Portrays the symbolic and naturalistic use of the cat and applies these concepts to SumT and its critique of the mendicant orders.

Reads the widow of FrT as a figural "type of the Church" that contributes to the "comic irony" of the Tale and deepens the guilt of the summoner by "playing off" of the biblical story of Rebecca.

Explores ecclesiastical connotations of the word "rente" in the GP description of the Friar, in SumT, and elsewhere in medieval usage.

Reads the noun "swan" as "swain" in the rhyming comparison with "Jovinyan" in SumT 3.1930, adducing logic, consistency of imagery, and source material.

Disputes Lowe's interpretation of KnT 1534-39. Arcite's sudden changes of mood, that of Chauntecleer (on a Friday) in NPT, the meaning of "gere" (a wild or changeful mood), and the first Adam's fall on the sixth day all suggest that Friday is not…

The discrepancy between the vice of the teller and the moral of his tale requires the pilgrim audience to revise and postpone its judgment and thus to contribute to the meaning of the exemplum.

Examines gardens in Chaucer's narratives as a means to show how literary and social conventions impose constraints and provide opportunities for the poet and characters alike to react to conventions. Surveys literary and historical gardens with…

Chaucer employs traditional garden topoi (locus amoenus, hortus conclusus, and paradys d'amours) to draw attention to precursors, to create discrepancy between CT context and tradition, to individualize narrators, and to show literary indebtedness in…

Considers the Wife of Bath's "colloquial, conversational idiom as a key to her character," examining details of diction, syntax, and imagery, and comparing her with Alison of MilT.

Suggests that GP 198-200 alludes to Matthew 6.16-18 and helps to characterize the Monk as "contemptuous of fasting."

Suggests that collected "vidas," or "lives," of the troubadours may have served as Chaucer's model for the "portraits" of the pilgrims in GP. Individual "vidas" open anthologies of troubadour verse in some fourteenth-century manuscripts, and Chaucer…

That the passage describing the Prioress's habit of wiping her mouth clean (GP, 133-36) has been misunderstood is shown in the translations by all modern translators, except Coghill, of "hir" in the phrase "hir coppe: (133) as "her" when it should be…

Explicates GP 1.673 (not 1.163, as in title), adding depth to the multiple, generally sexual innuendoes of the "stif burdoun" borne by the Summoner to accompany the Pardoner's song.

Explores the denotative, connotative, figurative, and ironic implications of the GP description of the Wife of Bath as one who knows "muchel of wandrynge by the weye" (1.497).

Offers examples from the "Roman de la Rose" and Deschamps' "Ballade" that the word "bourdan" had the meaning "phallus," showing that the sense would have been familiar to Chaucer when he used "stif burdoun" to describe the Summoner's singing with the…

Clarifies the reference to Christ catching Peter as he sailed in GP 1.696-98, focusing on the figurative meaning of "hente" and its implications regarding the Pardoner's faux relic, Peter's sail-cloth.

As Meyer Schapiro has noted, the mousetrap, associated with the Prioress in GP 145, is used by Augustine as a symbol of the cross that entraps the devil with the bait of Christ's flesh. The same allegory is found in Peter Lombard's "Sentences."

In GP, Sq-FranL, and FranP, Chaucer characterizes the Franklin as obsessed "with appearances and good feeling." FranT manifests these obsessions and exposes the teller's "superficial understanding of 'gentilesse'."

Part 1 describes the Canterbury pilgrims that qualify as "gentils" by birth, education, or accomplishment (Knight, Prioress, Monk, Squire, Franklin, Merchant, Guildsmen, Sergeant of Law, Physician, Parson, and Nun's Priest), explaining details of…

Offers historical context for and commentary on the characterizations of the pilgrims in the CT who may be considered "gentry," both those of traditional gentle birth and those on the rise as a class of new gentry.

Explores the "gift economy" and commercial culture of CT, and applies gift theory and economic anthropology to medieval literary criticism. Examines "gender of the gift," exchange of women, and gifts in GP. Chapter 6 focuses on the Franklin's gifts…

Reads Scog as a playful, comic version of a "moral ballade" or "balade of bon conseyl" that shares similarities with French models, portions of TC, and several of Chaucer's other lyrics. Comments on the unity of the poem, its possible occasion or…

Contrasts the sorrows of the Dreamer and of Alcyone with that of the Man in Black in BD, arguing that the first two serve to elevate the intensity of the latter. Then examines the epideitic praise of Blanche/White as a form of personification that…